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.NOVELS AND TRAVEL 

BY 

iliriam Coles Harris. 

■ ■ ♦ 

RUTLEDGE. i6mo, $1.25. 

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Publishers^ 

Boston and New York. 


HAPPY-GO-LUCKY 


BY 

MIRIAM COLES HARRIS 

AUTHOR OF “ RUTLEDGE” 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
(Cbe prejei?, Cambribgc 



COPYRIGHT, iSSl, BY G, W CARLETON & CO. 
COPYRIGHT, IQOQ, BY MIRIAM COLES HARRIS 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



f 

t 

9 

4 

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LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
TwoOooies Received 

APK 14 IdOy 

_ Copyriant tntry 
OtASS XXc. No, 


olxss al AXc, 




CONTElirTS 


OHAPTEB 1>ASH' 

1. Sea Breezes 9 

n. Vivat Rex 20 

in. Misfits 31 

IV. On the Sands 41 

V. Unconventional for a First Call 47 

VI. Tea, Treated Unconventionally 67 

VII. Bringing the Mail 74 

Vni. In Re Brass 83 

IX. Keeping a Birthday 99 

X. En Grande Tenne Ill 

XI. Catechetical 128 

Xn. Second 'Thoughts 143 

Xni. Two Gray Eggs in the Sand 151 

XIV. The Nest in the Cedar Tree 169 

XV. A Day of Reckoning 176 

XVI. The Sea makes Moan 185 

XVn. In the Brooding Darkness 198 

XVm. The Court-room 220 

XIX. Being Duly Sworn 244 

[V] 


ri CONTENTS. 

OHAPTEB PAGE 

XX. For and Against 257 

XXI. Counsel for the Defence 269 

XXTI. Counsel for the Prosecution 280 

XXni. In the Judgment of Twelve Men 293 

XXIV. The Tinkle of a Tiny Bell 308 

XXV. The Eastern Moon 332 

XXVI. The Lecture 350 

XXVII. The Corner Rooms 359 

XXVIII. Constrained to Hear 369 

XXIX. Some Dead Flowers 383 

XXX. Cap and Apron 392 

XXXI. A Woman, not a Shade 404 

XXXII. A Fair Land. 414 


HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. 




I 


>y 



HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. 


CHAPTER I. 


SEA BEEEZES. 


“ But nature was so kind I 
Like a dear friend I loved the loneliness; 
My heart rose glad as at some sweet caress 


When passed the wandering wind.” 


Celia Thaxter. 


HE train stopped, without abruptness, the conductor 



J- called out ‘‘ South Berwick,” in almost a conversa- 
tional key, to the inhabitants of the one passenger car 
that, with the baggage car and tender, formed the train. 
It had been crawling for hours along a flat country, 
stopping at intervals at stations that bore a family like- 
ness to this, and then moving stolidly forward through 
more scrub oaks, and more sandy cuttings, and past more 
isolated and despondent farms. Sometimes a passenger 
got off. Less frequently one or two got on. At one 
place a man got off, and I watched him walk away, 
down a straight, long, sandy road that ran through a low 
pine wood, and seemed to have no ending. He was 
very tall, and seemed to dwarf the poor little forest. 


[ 9 ] 


10 


SEA BREEZES. 


He carried a bag, and was dressed all in black broad- 
cloth, and the hat he wore was a sleek, well-brushed 
beaver, which caught the rays of the morning sun, over 
the tops of the pitiful trees, and shone illustriously. 
W e stayed so long at that station 1 watched him a good 
way on his journey ; but he did not turn back, or evince 
any interest in what he had left behind him. I wondered 
whether he was going to preach a sermon at a funeral 
or to sell books out of his leather bag. But whither 
would conjecture stray V’ Here we were at South Ber- 
wick, and my heart, which had been growing heavier 
with each added mile of sand, went down with a sudden 
precipitation as I heard the long-looked for announce- 
ment, and, gathering up the child and the bag that fell 
to my share, stepped out upon the platform. 

It was a desperately dull and dreary place. One or 
two men moved about deliberately, and seemed to be 
taking care of our trunks and of the mail-bag, which 
were all that they put out of the baggage-car. 
Though it was the last of May, and though a bright sun 
was shining, the wind was blowing from the sea, and it 
was cold. I wrapped a shawl around Maidy, who clung 
close to me and looked bewildered; Sophia (she was 
maid, but she ought to have been mistress) set down 
Baby on the platform, handed me the cord by which she 
held the dog, and bustled about to see to the trunl^s. I 
took Baby by one hand and. Maidy by the other, and 
walked up and down on the boards, and felt very sorry 
for myself. What desolation, what dullness ! and we 
had taken a house here, and had to stay all summer I 
had been so long used to brick and mortar dullness and 
desolation that this seemed very chilly. 

Don’t go away with the checks,” called Sophia 


SEA BEEEZE8. 


11 


sharply, for I had walked down towards the old stage, 
the only vehicle in sight, and was trying to cheer Maidy 
by telling her it would take us away to the sea. 

When the luggage was disposed of, and we were in 
the stage, wrapped in all the shawls the careful Sophia 
would allow us, we rolled away towards the village. It 
was no use to ask the driver how far we had to go, for 
he spoke without turning his head, and the wind took 
his words away from us. What a wind ! But the sun 
shone warm on my shoulder, and the shawls were thick, 
and in a few moments we drove into a green and pretty 
village. The street was very broad, and the houses 
looked at each other across it with a cheerful recogni- 
tion. There were vines about the doors, and the trees, 
through not very large, were green with the greenness of 
May. Two or three gray old houses stood with gable 
ends to the street, but more, all green and white, stood 
primly facing the public, not ashamed. 

“ Maidy, it’s not so bad after all,” I cried cheerfully, 
giving her a little hug, for there was a wind-mill in the 
distance, whose white sails were turning against the blue 
sky, and in a window I had seen some flowers. The 
little girl, tenderly responsive always to my moods, 
pressed close to me, and pointed, pleased, to a pigeon- 
house under the eaves of a barn, where pigeons, white 
and gray, were sunning themselves, and strutting up 
and down the little balcony. It was noon, and the 
school-bell was ringing, and a troop of children ran out 
upon the sidewalk and gazed after us. A horse was 
tied before the village “ store an empty farm wagon 
rattled past us ; this was all the animation that we saw, 
but the village, somehow, was not desolate ; the sunshine 


12 


SEA BREEZES. 


and tlie greenness and the trimness made up for the 
absence of human stir. 

We lumbered on through the village, pausing only to 
throw out the mail-bag at the post-office. The houses grew 
fewer and farther apart. We thought, as we approaclied 
each one, it was the one to which we were bound. I 
could see Sophia’s hopes were set upon the trim boxes 
with white-washed palings. When all these were past, 
and we had only two low farm-houses between us and the* 
blue line of ocean, which we now could see, I breathed 
freer. At the last of these two the stage drew up. 

“ Are you sure this is the house,” I said, with, a fear 
of some mistake. 

“ There ain’t no other for it to be,” he said, pulling 
open the stage door. 

I sprang out, almost forgetting to take Maidy, who 
held out her arms to me eagerly. The little gray gate 
was closed. I was bending over the rusty latch, when 
Sophia recalled me to my responsibilities, and told me, 
in a hard tone, that the man was to be paid. After I 
had counted out the money for him, I said, laughing, 
‘‘ Sophia, I see you don’t like the house ; I am afraid 
you think it is a trifle old.” 

“Old,” she sniffed, setting down poor Baby with 
emphasis, and jerking Ilex’s cord to keep him from under 
the wheels of the stage, but not looking at me nor at the 
house, as she followed me through the gate. “ If any- 
body likes rats and cockroaches and ants and mildew — ” 

“It’s perfect,” I cried, gazing up at the gray shin- 
gles. “But how shall we get in? I thought Colonel 
What’s-his-name was going to have it opened, and to 
send a woman to have a fire, and something ready for 
us.” 


STi A, 


13 . 

It all comes,’’ muttered Sophia, “ of taking a house 
without going to see it ; and bringing children into the 
country at this time of year’s an outrage. They’re 
starved now, and there isn’t a neighbor near enough 
to get a glass of milk from.” 

But at this moment around the corner of the house 
there appeared an Indian woman, brown and smiling, 
who said she had been sent to open the house and build 
a fire for us, and that there was bread, and eggs and 
milk within. 

Sophia reluctantly followed her, and Maidy and I 
ran up the side steps that led to the balcony across the 
front of the house, and peeped in at the closed windows. 

I had a delightful feeling of possession ; it was so long 
since I had had a delightful feeling of any kind, no one 
need have begrudged me this. I had been three years a 
widow, and had never been in the country since that 
dreary blight had fallen on my life, but had spent the 
time in stufiy city apartments, depressed by sorrow, 
harassed by poverty ; many months of the three years 
prostrated by dangerous illness. It had been like a 
gleam of sunshine, when the doctor, touched by Maidy’s 
pale cheeks, had proposed a summer by the sea for us, 
and had made the way plain by a communication with 
Colonel Emlyn, who owned two or three cottages at this 
remote place, and who was glad to hear of a tenant 
who would be contented with mildew and rag carpets, 
and who did not hanker for society. The rent was low, 
the air irreproachable, — ^that was all I asked ; and with 
the first breath of the sea-breeze, life and youth seemed 
to come back to me. The zest with which I ran up 
.he steps and counted the windows, and gazed at the 
narrow front door, with its rusty knocker and fan- 


14 


SEA BKEEZES. 


shaped light above, contrasted sharply with the apathy 
with which I had taken possession of the rooms to 
which from time to time we had moved in the city. 
Sophia had had all the work of selecting and prepar- 
ing them, and had been all energy and approbation in 
consequence. The case was reversed now, and Sophia’s 
disapproval was the only cloud upon the sunny sky of 
our new life. 

I loved the house from the first moment that I saw 
it. It was a dilapidated, unpainted farm-house, which 
Colonel Emlyn had bought as a speculation some years 
before, wlien he built his own house down by the sea. 
He had fancied it would be easy to rent it, and had 
spent a few hundred dollars in fitting it up. But it had 
been on his hands more years than off them ; and I sup- 
pose he often wished he had his few hundred dollars 
back, as no one enjoys an unprofitable speculation that 
is always in his sight. If the same amount of money 
had been sunk in an imaginary mine or on a collapsed 
railroad, he would not have given it a second thought. 
But here was his little mistake in view from every 
window of his house, and it fretted the good colonel, as 
I afterwards saw. 

The house was built in an unusual way for that part 
of the country. The first story was stone, and in front, 
a few narrow windows let light into a kitchen and a 
mouldy sort of store-room ; the entrance to the kitchen 
was at the side. A fiight of steps at one side led up to 
a balcony, which I believe was one of the colonel’s im- 
provements, but it was unpainted, like the rest of the 
house, and had turned a beautiful gray. A trumpet 
creeper, witli a stem like a young tree, climbed over this 
balcony, and an ivy, with very small, glossy leaves, clung 


SEA BREEZES, 


15 


against the not very firm shingles of the side towards 
the sea, above the kitchen entrance. From the balcony 
one saw the bine line of ocean above the low sand-hills 
which skirted the beach. The helds between us and the 
sea were perfectly flat, and there was not a tree in sight, 
in that direction, save the old cedar that shaded our own 
windows, and the few little sprigs that the colonel had 
planted on the road that led to his own house. It was 
about half a mile to the sea, from our cottage, but it 
looked much less. We were the outpost of the farming 
interest — the last house of the village towards the sea. 

W e could not get in at the front door, so Maidy and 
I ran down the steps, and tumbled over Baby, who was 
climbing up to meet us, and who, being set on her feet, 
joined us in our researches in the yard. A thick bed of 
periwinkles had rooted out the grass, and made a great 
expanse of dark glossiness, and with exclamations of de- 
light we pulled bunches of the dark blue flowers that 
peeped above the leaves. Maidy found dandelions, too ; 
she had a Park acquaintance with them, and was charmed 
at the rencontre. The neglected old garden was full of 
green things sprouting up : this, I knew to be a bunch 
of hollyhocks, from the tall dead stalks that had survived 
the winter’s storms under the shelter of the house, and 
stood up about the place of their nativity. These might 
be artemisias for the autumn’s joy, here was columbine, 
morning-glory, the little heart-shaped leaves of a dark- 
blue, scentless violet. And here, under an old box-tree, 
grew a single stem of lily of the valley. There was 
xio trace of a path anywhere, nor of any flower-beds ; 
dead grass lay about the roots of the new grass ; the stiff 
dry stems of last year’s vines snapped and broke as 1 
leaned down to look at the green soft wonders that were 


IG 


SEA BREEZES 


springing up. Maidy was entangled in some fallen 
branches, and Baby stood waist-deep in ribbon-grass. I 
extricated Maidy, and lifted Baby out, and then we 
pushed on towards the empty barn-yard, and the colony 
of outhouses, dilapidated and unused. 

“ This, Maidy, shall be your playhouse,” I cried, 
pulling open on its rusty hinges the door of an old 
workshop, from which a lean cat darted forth, scattering 
dust and some corn cobs that the rats had left. 

“ Whose is it now ? ” she said, looking wonderingly in. 

“ Ours, Maidy, all ours, even the big barn.” 

What a sweet feeling that was. W e climbed over 
into the barn-yard, we pried open the barn door, we 
lifted the lids of grain bins, we revelled in the cob- 
webs and the dust-heaps, for they belonged to us. The 
poor little city babies followed me with eager, ignorant 
exultation. The sunshine was so warm and delicious, 
the verdure I looked out upon so new to my starved 
sight, a new current of life seemed setting through 
my veins. 

I had led the children far down a narrow lane that 
ran past the barn-yard ; I don’t know where we meant 
to go. The children’s arms were full of foolish treas- 
ures, my brain with fancies just about as worthless, 
when our wanderings were brought to an end by the 
shrill call of Sophia, who, out of patience and out of 
-breath, had run after us, and had snatched Baby up, 
and was talking at me over her shoulder as she walked 
back towards the house. 

“ The child will be starved,” she said “ it’s three- 
quarters of an hour since we got out of the stage, and 
here I have had her dinner ready twenty minutes, and 
it’s stone cold on the table, while I’ve been hunting all 


Slii A SSiSSZSS* 


17 


over the old rookery for you, and calling and calling 
till I’m hoarse.” 

Baby didn’t mind her scolding ; she knew how lit- 
tle it meant, for she had been brought up on it. She 
stroked her nurse’s cheek with her little soft hand, and 
pulled at the ribbon of her hat. Maidy and I turned 
meekly and followed towards the dinner which we cer- 
tainly ought not to have forgotten. I took Maidy’s 
treasures to carry, and lifted her over some rough places 
in the lane, and in many ways loitered to give Sophia 
a chance to get ahead of us and leave us to follow in 
peace. But great a hurry as she was in, she would not 
let us get out of hearing : we were to know what she 
had to say. It was her peculiarity : when she got 
worked up into a mood like this, it seemed inevitable 
that she should say just so much, and then a sullen and 
possibly repentant mood would follow, in which we had 
silence enough. 

Sophia could not be considered like an ordinary 
servant. She had come to my mother’s house a girl of 
fourteen, when I was not as old as Maidy. Every one 
knows the intimacy that grows up between children 
placed in such relationship. Sophia was my nurse, and 
waited on me, though she was scarcely more than a child 
herself, but I looked up to her with great respect, and 
loved her with great affection. She had an immense in- 
fluence over me, and my whole childhood bore her im- 
press. When I was married, she came to me, naturally, 
and my interests were hers. My mother could ill spare 
her, being near the close of her lonely, suffering life, but 
I was so ver;y young, and was going so far away, it was 
tacitly conceded, Sophia must go with me. 

As things turned out, it seemed a mercy tha t she 


18 


SEA BREEZES. 


did. My husband and I were but a pair of children ; 
trouble and illness came fast enough ; my whole mar- 
ried life was not three years, l^o sister could have 
been more unsparing of herself, no mother more vigil- 
ant and anxious. Our ignorance, our slender means, 
our youth, would have made us very helpless without 
this lynx-eyed guardian. For many months after I was 
left a widow, she had, single-handed to take care of me, 
and of the two babies, with the barest purse, and the 
darkest outlook. My mother had died a year before y 
the little property that was coming to me was in litiga- 
tion ; I had literally no one to look to. What did I not 
owe her ! She had a right to scold me and to lead me 
back to dinner in disgrace. 

Rather better times were upon us now, and she 
would probably scold the more in consequence. The 
lawsuit had been recently decided in my favor, and the 
small property that my mother left was now mine. It 
was well invested ; the income from it, though not large, 
was as certain as such things can be. We should never 
be called upon to go through the experiences of the 
past two or three years, and with economy we could be 
comfortable, and I could educate the children, and live 
respectably, and not be oppressed with care for the fu- 
ture. It was heaven to feel this, after the long pressure 
of anxiety, but though I had known the facts for two 
months, I had not seemed to realize them till I had 
breathed this air and got out of the surroundings sc 
associated with suffering. 

When we got to the kitchen door, I remembered, as 
I laid down Maidy’s treasures on the stone, that I had not 
yet been in the house, and I said this, with a little laugh, 
to Maidy. 


SSiA 


19 


“ It’s fine housekeeping that begins with the outside 
of the house,” snapped Sophia, settling Baby in a chair 
by the table, while the Indian woman put the omelette, 
and the bread and butter, and the tea upon the table. 

“What a dear old kitchen,” I said, going to look 
out a latticed door that opened into a sort of covered 
place, with one side open to the yard, and with the 
well just before it. “ Maidy, I shall draw the well.” 

“It’s more than I shall,” cried Sophia, “and I’m 
inclined to think you’ll find your kitchen dear, before 
the summer’s over, sure enough, if you count all the 
help you’ll have to hire to get your work done in it.” 

I did not dare admire it any more after that, but sat 
down humbly beside Maidy, and was served with a meal 
anything but cold, which we all ate with appetites which 
even Sophia could not disapprove. 


CHAPTEK IL 


VIVAT EEX. 

** His very hair is of the dissembling color.” 

As You Like R. 

T WO days followed, during which my pleasure in 
my new home was unabated. I continued to keep 
house outside, and Sophia, now somewhat mollified, to 
get in order the inside. It was on the afternoon of the 
second day ; I had got my blue fiannel suit out of a 
trunk (or perhaps Sophia had) and had put it on for the 
first time, together with a shade hat which she had 
trimmed for me when we first began to talk of the sea* 
side. It was very odd not to be wearing a black dress, 
but it all seemed in keeping with the free, new life. 
Maidy admired me very much, and insisted upon kissing 
me. She was only five years old, but she had a great 
sense of the fitness of things, and had been distressed, I 
believe, by my great crape veil ever since we came to 
the country. She and Baby were fresh and pretty in 
their fiannel dresses, and white sunbonnets, and thus 
we all went out for a walk, leaving Sophia at the gate, 
looking after the work of her hands with some pardon- 
able satisfaction. 

For were we not, in a sense, the work of her hands, 
blue fiannel dresses and all ? I always have believed the 
children would never have lived but for her care, and I 

[ 20 ] 


VIVAT EEX. 


21 


know I sliOTildn’t. And as to the blue flannel dress and 
the coarse straw hat, I should never have had them but 
for her intervention. I had not wanted anything for 
the last three years but to be let alone to cry my eyes 
out under the crape veil supplied to me by fate. Susan 
leaned for a few moments over the gate and looked after 
us, with a softness in her black eyes ; it must have com- 
forted her to see me look so young and well again ; and 
the children, for whom she had so labored, walked 
demure and prim beside me in the soft spring sunshine. 
I think she felt that afternoon as if the warfare were 
over, and the da^ of peace fairly risen in the sky. 

Baby was but three years old, and had to be very 
much aided when we went to walk. I did not propose 
to go very far, but the temptation of a new road led me 
on, and long before I knew it, we were a good way from 
home across the level country, and the sun was declin- 
ing slowly. Maidy was very fresh and bright, but Baby 
was beginning to lag behind and fret a little, and I began 
to tliink it was a pity that we had come so far. We had 
not reached the sea yet, though we were very near it, 
and could hear the waves breaking on the shore, though 
the sand-hills hid them from us. 

We had been walking for some time on a road that 
ran parallel to the beach, and now I found myself on a 
narrow lane that crossed it and went down through an 
opening to the water’s edge. The road was a little lower 
than the field, and I sat down on the bank, and took 
Baby on my lap, and pulled some wild roses from a bush 
beside me and ornamented her hat with them, and tried 
to amuse her and get her rested. Maidy strayed ofl in 
pursuit of more wild roses. Kex, the dog, lay at my 
feet and panted after his exertions. He was a French 


22 


VTVAT BEX. 


poodle, with soft, white, curling hair and lovely pinh 
skin under it ; he had a temper as infirm as Sophia’s, and 
eyes as black, but much more tender in their expression. 
We loved him beyond language, but he barked nearly 
all the time, and was a great inconvenience. Baby now 
^egan patting him, and, rested, got up, toddled about on 
the uneven ground and pulled grass and flowers, and 
scrambled up one rail of the fence, and down again and 
up again, and so on. I clasped my hands around my 
knees and sat looking over the long line of fields across 
which the level shadows were stretching, breathing the 
air fresh from the sea, and listening to the roll of the 
surf beyond. The sunshine was still warm and delicious ; 
some birds chirped about the bushes near me ; Baby’s 
happy little chatter sounded as intelligible ; when Bex, 
starting from my feet, gave a furious bark, and dashed 
down the lane, along which a troop of cows, two loose 
horses, and a bull, were coming rapidly. 

I sprang up and got Baby by the hand, and called 
vehemently to Bex to come back to me. He, instead, 
ran barking at the heels of the cows, who, frightened, 
kicked and ran and looked back at him, and kicked 
again, and the horses shook their manes and raised their 
heads, and looked as if they might do any fearful thing 
under such a provocation. The peaceful lane became 
suddenly a scene of great tumult and confusion. I don’t 
know where the cows had come from, nor how they had 
got upon us with so little observation ; I suppose I must 
have been very much lost in my revery ; I did not dare 
to run down the bank after the dog, whose destruction 
seemed imminent, among all those hoofs and horns. 1 
held Baby by the hand, and going as near the edge of 
the bank as I could, I called despairingly, and then tried 


VIVAT KEX. 


23 


to whistle. I could not whistle ; I never could. I pursed 
up my mouth with effort, and no doubt made a vei’y 
ludicrous face, but all the sound that came was a very 
faint affair, like an aspirated sigh, which of course the 
dog could not hear. I felt like crying, I was so full of 
trouble and excitement. At that moment, directly at 
my elbow, I found some one standing. I turned quickly, 
and looked into the face of a yoimg man, who had come 
upon the scene as mysteriously as the cows. 

“ Shall I whistle for you ?” he said, with gravity, 
though his eyes were very merry. 

“ Oh, if you only would,” I cried, with no sense of 
the humor of the situation. “ I* am sure he will be 
killed, and Ihn afraid of the cows.” 

Thereupon he whistled, a clear shrill whistle, that 
arrested the attention of the dog, who halted for an 
instant, turned his head towards us, and then dashed 
on, with renewed zest, after the bull, who was putting 
down his head angrily. 

“ He will be killed,” I exclaimed, dropping Baby, 
and wringing my hands. 

The stranger spraiig down the bank, dashed in 
among the horns and hoofs, and, making a plunge at 
the dog, caught him by the hair, and bore him wrig- 
gling and barking back to me, and put him in my arms. 

“ Oh, thank you,” I said, but I don’t suppose he 
heard me above the racket that the dog and the cows 
were making. I struggled to hold him, and to keep 
him quiet, but Baby was tugging at my dress, and, look- 
ing across to the other side of the road, I caught sight of 
poor Maidy, who was, from the contortions of her face, 
probably crying loudly, but 1 couldn’t hear anything 
but the yelping of the cur and the lowing of the cows. 


24 


VIVAT KEX. 


I liad forgotten all about her. She v^as clinging to the 
fence (the wrong side of it), of course, and in a very 
ecstasy of fear, for which there was much excuse, as the 
cows were upon her side of the bank, and she was 
really in danger of being walked over by the great crea- 
tures, even if they had no evil intention towards her. 

‘‘ Shall I bring your little sister to you said the 
sedate stranger, who again accomplished the feat of 
fording the current of cows, and who sprang up the 
bank lithely, and stood by the terrified little child 
almost before I had taken in his question. He was 
small and slight ; at the first glance I should have said 
he was eighteen, at the second, twenty-eight. He was 
close shaved, and his hair was very dark, and as short 
as it could be cut. He was very sunburned ; his eyes 
were keen and dark ; his nose was well cut, his mouth 
rather large. He was dressed in knickerbockers, with 
a blue flannel shirt and red belt, and wore a little, 
close-fitting cap, also blue, I think. 

I looked anxiously to see how Maidy would take 
the approach of a stranger. She was a very timid 
child, and I was always prepared, from experience, to 
see her go into a frenzy of crying, if any one came 
near her whom she did not know. It was a comforta- 
ble surprise, now, to see her suspend her sobs, look up 
into the stranger’s face, let him take her hand, and 
finally lift her up in his arms. She was small and 
light for five years old (such a pretty doll, with lier 
long, loose, yellow curls, and large blue eyes). He 
lifted her up on his right arm, and drew one of her 
little hands around his neck, and held it in his left. 
He was talking to her softly all the while, with his 
face close to hers. She did not seem to be at all afraid 


VIVAT KEX. 


25 


of him, nor of the cows, but listened with parted lips 
and a serious look, the tears still on her cheeks. 

The rear-guard of the cows was now passing us. 
He waited a moment, then skirted the end of the pro- 
cession, and brought her back to me. He set her down 
on her feet on the bank beside me, keeping hold of 
her little hand till she was standing firm, then, in a 
graceful sort of way, stooped down and kissed it befcre 
he released it. He lifted his cap to me, almost without 
looking at me, and was gone. My eyes followed him 
with a sort of wondering admiration of his light, quick 
movements ; a cart, which I had not seen in the melee, 
seemed to be waiting for him in the road which I had 
just left. He sprang into it, and the young lad who 
was driving it looked curiously and amusedly towards 
us, and I was quite sure was laughing at something 
that he told him of us. The cart was one of those 
two-wheeled joggling things, known as beach carts. 
There were some crab-nets in it, and a basket covered 
up with sea-weed. The horse was a nice-looking cob, 
who in a few moments had joggled them, not out of 
sight, that would have been diflicult in a country 
where one could see one’s friends coming to call three 
miles ofl:, but out of a critical neighborhood. That is 
to say, they were soon so far away I couldn’t tell 
whether they were laughing at me or not. They drove 
through the herd of cows as if they were not afraid of 
them ; the clumsy things scattered to right and left ; I 
began to see they were lean and high-shouldered crea- 
tures, who probably wouldn’t have done us any harm. 
The troop settled down into a comfortable jog, and 
across the level landscape I could see them moving on, 
marked by a little cloud of dust. I put Kex on the 


2G 


VIVAT KEX. 


ground, with an admonitory shake, and helped tlie 
children through the fence. 

“ What did he say to you, Maidy,” 1 asked, as I 
wiped the tears off her face, and set right her some- 
what distorted skirts. 

“ He said he would take me to my sister,” she 
answered. 

“Your sister, indeed! Well, what was he talking 
about all the rest of the time 

“ He told me not to be afraid of the cows ; he said, 
they wouldn’t hurt me. He held me tight.” 

“ All, were you afraid ?” 

“Ho, he held me so high up, like the milkman.” 

I laughed. Maidy had a great liking for being 
lifted up in tlie strong arms of a man ; poor child, she 
had had little experience of it, the milkman being 
about our only male visitor since she had been old 
enough to remember. 

“ Which do you think is the nicest, this gentleman 
who carried you across the road iust now, or the milk- 
man ?” 

But Maidy’s feelings were hurt by my laugh, and 
she put down her head, and would not answer. 

“•It’s all right, dear little one,” I said, kissing her, and 
leading her on to join Baby. “ You like to be carried, 
I know ; you can’t remember how Papa used to carry 
his little girl, hours and hours together, when she was 
a baby, and was sick, and couldn’t go to sleep.” And. 
the tears rushed into my eyes at the recollection. 

“ Tell me about it,” whispered Maidy, holding tight 
my hand. Dear Maidy ; how she loved to hear those 
stories. She had been my only confidante, these sad 
years ; twilight after twilight, while Sophia plied her 


YIVAT EEX. 


27 


busy needle, and rocked the baby, in another room, 
Maidy, in the dark, had lain in my anns, and listened to 
stories of the father whom she could not recollect. I don’t 
know whether it was good for her or good for me. I 
almost fear these three years had been very morbid 
ones. I had acknowledged to myself no duty but the 
duty of keeping fresh the past ; perhaps I had resisted 
the natural reaction that might have come if I had 
been passive. But, indeed, the circumstances of my 
Ufe had been all against any such reaction ; I ought not 
to blame myself too much. The dullness and gloom 
of my sunwndings made me turn my gaze back into 
the past, where once there had been light. If in my 
grief there was selfishness, at least there was no rebel- 
lion. I only asked leave to hide myself and weep. 

How far Maidy ’s timidity and frail health were the 
result of this treatment, I cannot tell. I did not think 
I was injuring her, Heaven knows. She was my only 
comfort. Sophia had such an acrid way of putting my 
duty before me that I unwisely discredited all she said. 
She left me nothing to do, with her tremendous en- 
ergy and activity, and as to what she counselled me to 
feel, it was not surprising that I did not consider that 
she knew enough of the grief to know its remedy. She 
had loved poor Arnold almost as much as she loved me, 
but it was not her way to sit down and cry about any- 
thing, and it must be said, in this strait, there was not 
much time for the luxury of tears for her. If she had 
not bestirred herself, what would have been our fate ? 
But it was an abiding subject of complaint with her 
that I took no interest in anything, that I was, as she 
expressed it, nursing my grief and making much of it. 

“ Tell me about it,” murmured Maidy that evening, 


28 


VIVAT HEX. 


as we walked home under the soft sunset sky. The 
grass was growing a little damp ; sweet smells came up 
from the close-cropped fields over which we walked ; 
the solemn monotone of the sea beyond sounded in our 
ears. I told her ; but somehow the telling was not as 
it used to be, in the close-shut, dim room, with the low 
roar of the city coming up from below. Our grief was 
a sort of hot-house plant, that did not seem at home in 
this free air. Maidy vaguely felt dissatisfied. She 
looked up in my face again and again ; she even 
twitched my dress once reproachfully when my eyes 
wandered to the sunset, and my narrative flagged in its 
flow. 

“ Don’t let us talk any more, Maidy,” I said ; “ I 
want to look at the sunset gates, and think about Para- 
dise.” 

Then I felt a pang of self-reproach ; I could not 
bear to be dishonest with the child ; I was not thinking 
of Paradise ; I was feeling the calm and hush of nature, 
full and sweet ; the glories of God’s lower world, where 
all the senses were fed with health arid with content. 
The shadowy world into which we had looked from 
that dark, silent chamber, had receded far out of my 
self-accusing sight. 

“ I mean,” I said, putting my arm about her neck, 
“ I am tired of talking, and just feel like being quiet. 
Besides, I think I ought to carry Baby.” 

Baby was again getting a little cross — she was willful 
always, as different as possible from Maidy. She was 
iiny ; with such hands ! I think they were the prettiest 
things. She was all so perfect and so pretty. Her eyes 
were gray and her lashes dark ; she had not much hair, 
but it was wavy and of a chestnut color. Her throat was 


VIVAT KEX. 


29 


very slender, and I never was tired of looking at the 
way she held her determined little head. Dear little 
Baby — everything she did seemed so wonderful, being 
done by a creature so minute. We were in the habit 
of thinking her a prodigy, but I suppose, really, it 
came from her being so much smaller than a child of 
three years ought to be. 

It was not much of a trial to carry her, but I was 
glad to hand her over to Sophia, and to go into the 
house, which we did by the side door of the kitchen, 
where our tea was spread. In a day or two, when 
things were more in order, we were going to move up 
stairs to the room above, and take our meals on a thin- 
legged little mahogany table, which the Indian woman 
had spent some hours in polishing. The furniture of 
the room was rather scanty and the floor had a rag car- 
pet on it ; but there was a corner closet with a glass 
door, and a very small supply of blue china cups and 
saucers, and flve plates. These atoned for the other 
defects and made it possible for me to feel I had a din- 
ing-room. Meanwhile, the kitchen was warm and snug, 
and each meal that we had eaten in it had seemed 
better than the other. 

“Sophia,” I said, dropping the sugar in my tea, 
“we have had an adventure. Maidy and Rex were 
almost under the feet of a herd of cows, and a young 
man suddenly appeared and rescued them. You may 
ask why I didn’t, but the truth was, I was afraid ; it 
was bad enough to look on.” 

Sophia did not appear to listen — she never appeared 
to listen ; it was one of her characteristics to put her 
own occupations before the communications of others, 
though I don’t think she ever lost much. She went on 


30 


VIVAT KEX. 


buttering Maidj’s bread, as she stood over her chair, 
and pouring out Baby’s milk, without even looking in 
ray direction. 

Maidy, with her mouth full of bread and butter, 
said, “ He carried me,” but Sophia only asked whether 
she’d have more hot water in her milk, with the pitcher 
suspended over her mug, and manifested no sort of inter- 
est in the matter. It was long years since I had presumed 
to find any fault with Sophia’s habits, even tacitly, but 
the sea air seem ed to be affecting me radically. I resolved 
she shouldn’t know anything about the adventure till 
she asked about it. So I said the Shinnecock made 
beautiful muffins, and took another one, and then told 
her I should be almost sorry when we went up-stairs to 
dine, it was so pleasant in the kitchen. The tins shone 
in the light of the parlor lamp, which was on the table, 
the stove doors were open, and the fire within shed 
forth a cheerful glow. She was not pleased with me, 
I could tell ; she shot a quick glance at me to see what 
I could mean, and was in a bad humor all the rest of 
the evening. As she was putting Maidy to bed, I heard 
her asking some leading questions, which resulted in 
Maidy’s telling the story to the best of her ability. 
From that little point, perhaps, started her opposition 
to me in all that concerned my new life. 


CHAPTEK m. 


MISFITS. 

**Thou hast my love; is not that neighborly ?” 

As Tou Like It. 

F KOM the balcony, and in fact from all the south 
windows of the cottage, I could see the house 
of my landlord. Colonel Emlyn. He was, in fact, the 
only summer resident of the place. He had several years 
before, in a casual visit to the village, been smitten with 
it, and, as rich men will, had built a house far too expen- 
sive for the place, and then, vaguely conscious of his 
error, had tried to remedy it by investing more money 
in more land, and building two or three cottages to rent. 
The cottages had never rented, the place was as far as 
ever from being a summer resort. The colonel did not 
go the right way to work. He was not fond of society 
himself, but he supposed the two children whom they 
were bringing up would soon be ; and for their sakes, 
he would have been glad of a neighbor or two who 
would be agreeable, and he had had visions of seeing 
the place become popular enough to bring back to his 
pocket a very small percentage of what he had invested 
there. 

One chilly March day, when the cottages were first 
built, a very important, fashionable woman had come 
down to look at them, having heard of them from the 

[311 


82 


MISFITS. 


colonel himself. There was a high, rough wind, the 
driver of the stage hadn’t been over civil, the lady’s head 
ached from having got up so early, the shut up houses 
naturally looked dismal and felt damp — she went back 
by the next train in disgust, and told the story of her 
journey at every dinner for the next six weeks. All the 
people who had been asking questions about South Ber- 
wick were dismayed and gave up the thought. One 
sheep having turned away and jumped over the bars, all 
the others, with mutton gravity, jumped over too, and 
left the colonel with his houses on his bands. 

I had been wondering whether the Colonel and Mrs. 
Emlyn would come to see me. It had seemed to me 
that it would be very unpleasant if they didn’t. I had 
cast a great many curious glances over at the large 
house whose outlines were so clear against the sky. I 
could see figures sometimes on the piazza, though it was 
impossible to distinguish them. Whenever the carriage 
came out of the gate, I watched with interest to see 
who was in it. The beach cart I knew belonged there, 
and the young man who had picked Rex up by the 
hair, and the young lad who had laughed at us. With 
all my watching, I did not know any one else by sight. 

The house was about half a mile from us, facing the 
ocean. It was a large house, long in proportion to its 
breadth, with a gambril roof and dormer windows, and 
a great stack of chimneys in the center. The kitchen and 
other offices were on the ground fioor. A great veranda 
ran all around the second story, and overlooked the low 
sand-hills, which in this part of the coast skirt the sea 
invariably. There was, at a little distance, a colony of 
stables and outhouses. There was no pretense of keep- 
ing the grounds in order. The entrance was through a 


MISFITS. 


33 


plain gateway ; a few trees had been set out, but had 
made little progress. The house honestly declared itself 
there for the sea and for nothing else, and it was suffi- 
cient reason for being. 

One morning, not long after the adventure that I 
would not tell to Sophia, I sat on the balcony rather 
idly sewing, and looked, as people do in the country, 
idly across towards the house of my neighbor. I saw 
the carriage come out from the stable, and drive up to 
the door, and presently some one get in. 1 could see 
some drapery which did not belong to a man : I began 
to wonder if it were Mrs. Emlyn, and if she were com- 
ing to see me. I ran into the parlor and opened the 
windows to let more sunlight in, and looked in the glass 
to see if my hair were right, and then, a little flurried, 
came out again and sat down with my work. I heard 
the voices of the children, playing in the yard below, 
and wondered whether, if Mrs. Emlyn did call, she would 
ask to see them. It is quite agitating to have visits 
when you are not in the habit of having them. The 
carriage was now out of the gate, and coming up the 
road ; it was certainly coming this way, but this way 
led to the village, to the post-office, to the station — to 
everything. It was coming quite fast, too ; the stout, 
well-groomed horses made very good time, and the road 
was hard, and, it is unnecessary to say, level. The car- 
riage was not very new in style, but comfortable and in 
good order. Yes, they were coming here ; the horses 
drew up at the gate; behind the trumpet creeper I 
agitatedly watched a lady get out, after a middle-aged 
man, who, of course, was Oolonel Emlyn. 

The lady came in at the gate, the gentleman followed 
her, looking down at the latch, and feeling its rustiness 
2 * 


34 


MISFITS. 


witli a landlord’s touch. The lady was very tall, quite 
an inch taller than her husband, and of a full and good 
figure. She walked quickly, and with an erect bearing ; 
she was very near-sighted, and looked keenly through 
her glasses. Her hair was almost white, in little curls 
above her forehead ; in contradiction, she had a young 
complexion, and a soft color on her cheeks. Her man- 
ner was most decisive, while her voice was veiy sweet. 
Her movements were abrupt ; you were deadly afraid of 
her till you looked into her face. When her face was 
in repose, it was as sweet as a child’s ; but even when it 
was rufiied, you soon concluded to take heart and hope 
for laappier times, which were on the way. When she 
came up on the balcony it was with a firm tread, but 
the foot that I saw, as she stepped up, was, by a natural 
contradiction, small and pretty. She looked about her 
for the bell or the knocker, not seeing me. I had 
arisen, and was coming forward from the other end of 
the balcony. 

“ Here is the young lady,” said the colonel, who was 
just behind her. 

“ Oh, where ?” she said, peering around ; and then 
3aught sight of me. 

“ I beg your pardon,” she said, meeting me ; “ I 
hope we shall find your mother at home.” She did not 
give me time to answer, but added quickly : “ I suppose 
we have the pleasure of speaking to her daughter?” 

I colored very much and said who I was. 

‘‘You?” she cried incredulously. “I — I — well, 
you must excuse me. It isn’t your fault that you look 
80 young. People generally don’t mind it, though.” 

Then the colonel came forward and she presented 
him, and I asked them to come into the parlor. When 


MISFITS. 


35 


they were seated, she still kept talking of the question 
of my identity, and smiling at the recollection of her 
mistake. 

The colonel said, “ You must excuse us. It comes 
of making up one’s mind on insufficient premises. We 
only knew through our friend, the doctor, what our 
new tenant’s name was, and that she was a widow.” 

(I wonder if he saw me wince.) 

“The other day,” went on the colonel, “Mr. 
Macnally and Ned came home and told us they had 
seen a young girl and some little children down below 
the meadows, and we concluded that they were all the 
lady’s children.” 

“ Besides,” interrupted Mrs. Emlyn, “ Ned said he 
had seen an older — person — on the beach with the 
children. We came to the conclusion this was she.” 

“ That is Sophia, the children’s nurse. She was my 
nurse too ; she has always lived with us. She manages 
everything.” 

This 1 said with a desire to make a greater show, 
of respectability. I had a feeling that the colonel 
would want to cancel the lease, that he would not in- 
tiTist his premises to such an unmatronly person. I 
began to feel myself more insignilicant than ever. 
They had come to see me under a delusion. I felt it 
an incongruity that such a person as I should be called 
upon. Mrs. Emlyn looked so grand and imposing. She 
had almost touched the ceiling when she stood up. She 
was not so very far from it now that she sat down. 

“ I hope you like it here,” she said, “ and that it 
agrees with your children — they are your children ? ” 
she added, interrogatively, doubtful of all her conclu- 
sions. 


36 


MISFITS. 


Oh, yes,” I answered, most uncomfortable. 

‘‘ It sounds exactly as if Mrs. Emlyn looked upon j-'ou 
as a fraud,” said the colonel, coming to my help. 

“Not at all,” she returned, with decision; “but 
when you don’t know people, you must ask questions. 
You don’t think there is any thing to object to in being 
asked questions, do you ? ” 

I tried to say I didn’t, but as it was a false state- 
ment, I don’t believe I made it very forcibly, and it 
made me seem younger and more inefficient than ever. 
He certainly, I thought, will take the house away from 
us. 

“You’ve been ill, some of you, I take it, since the 
doctor sent you here,” went on Mrs. Emlyn. 

She certainly had very small grounds to base her 
conclusions on, and was not to be blamed for wishing 
to enlarge them. I began to think it would have been 
kind in the doctor to have told them something about 
us, but he was a great and a busy doctor, and had to be 
content with sketching his good deeds in outline. I 
told her I had been ill a good deal for two or three 
years, and that the children were both delicate, particu- 
larly the elder. 

“ Are they girls or boys ? ” asked Mrs. Emlyn, and 
when I told their ages, she looked disappointed. 

“ But of course,” she said, “ they could not be any 
older — ” and then she made a pause. 

I straggled with myself ; I wanted to put myself 
right with these so important people ; my voice trem- 
bled when I said, “ I am older than you think me ; I 
was married when I was eighteen, that is six years ago. 
N ow I am twenty-four.” 

“ Ah ! ” she said with, a sigh, and a look of compas- 


MISFITS. 


37 


Bion. Then, regaining herself, she said, “ I was hoping 
to find the children old enough to be playmates for 
IN^aoini. We have,” she went on, in an explanatory 
tone, ‘‘two children, a nephew and a niece, whom we 
are bringing up. The little girl is lonely, she has no 
companions; but she is twelve years old. ITed has liis 
tutor, who is about as much of a boy as he, and thej 
are always out and having a good time, but Naomi is 
lonely, I wish the children were older.” 

“I don’t think Naomi pines,” said the colonel. 
“ She is always happy enough when I see anything of 
her, racing about the beach, or driving Euby before 
the beach cart.” 

“ Yes, and how often does she get a chance to drive 
Euby? Ned and Mr. Macnally have the cart all the 
time, and Naomi has to amuse herself the best way she 
can. If she weren’t such a good little girl she would 
be whining all the time. You really don’t know any- 
thing about it ; I would give anything for somebody to 
play with Naomi. I had set my heart upon there be- 
ing a little girl about her age.” 

And she looked at me reproachfully. The colonel 
laughed, and I, agitated as I was, also laughed a little, 
and then Mrs. Emlyn began to see the absurdity of the 
matter, and laughed too ; a very pleasant, musical laugli. 

“You don’t suit at all,” she said. “You are too 
young for me and the colonel, and too old for Naomi 
and Ned ; and the children are complete misfits.” 

This made things a little easier. The colonel got 
up and walked around the room and examined the wall 
paper and ceiling critically. 

“ It isn’t so damp as one would think,” he said, look- 


38 


MISFITS. 


ing around and drawing a deep breath, as if critically to 
test the atmosphere. 

‘‘ We don’t think it damp at all. I have a little 
fire lighted every evening in the Franklin. I am so 
glad there is a Franklin.” 

“ Ah, you like it ? ” he said. “ I had the chimney 
opened, and that stove brought down from the attic; 
the old people who owned the house had stufied up 
the chimney, and put in an air-tight.” 

“ And isn’t that little corner cupboard in the dining- 
room nice ? ” I said. “ Don’t you want to come and 
look at the dining-room ? ” 

So we went into the dining-room, and 1 showed them 
the cupboard and the little, long, narrow closet by the 
walled-up fireplace, and all the improvements that I 
had made in the arrangement of things. I am afraid 
the dining-room, so called, was a dismal old hole, but I 
liked it very much, and said so. 

“ Ah,” cried Mrs. Emlyn, shrugging her shoulders, 
“I don’t want any old houses to live in. I should 
smother in this room. Why don’t you take the sashes 
of the windows out ? They don’t open more than five 
inches. If it weren’t for being afraid of the rain I 
should take the sashes out.” 

She was much interested in everything, but she 
kept outside the door and did not do more than look in. 

“ You need some more china,” said the colonel. 
“Penelope, can’t we spare some of that old blue, 
like this ?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know anything about the china. Ask 
Eachel, she can tell you. I do not think, myself, there 
is any more than we can use.” 

While I was protesting, frightened, tliat I didn’t 


MISFITS. 


39 


need any more china, she explained herself with gestures. 
“ You know there isn’t any use in promising what we 
haven’t got. It is just like a man to make promises. 
My own impression is we are rather short of blue, but 
if we’re not, there’s no objection to your having what 
you want. Only there’s no use in making promises.” 

The colonel didn’t seem to mind at ail, and said, 
“We’ll see,” and then fell to promising me some more 
piazza chairs, when we walked out there ; and Mrs. 
Emlyn said there was a hammock that was not being 
used, if I cared for having it. She did not seem to be 
exactly consistent about promising, for she pledged her- 
self to send me, besides the hammock, an extra mattress 
and two tables. 

“You might as well have them,” she said. “ They’re 
doing nobody any good, and lumbering up the attic.” 

That took ofi the load of the obligation, certainly. 
The colonel walked about, quite as if it were his house, 
which seemed odd to me. He was a short, rather thin 
:aan, with a prominent nose, kind blue eyes, bushy eye- 
brows, a high forehead, and grizzled hair that curled 
yet. One feels as if grizzled hair would have forgotten 
to curl, particularly when it is thin on the top. He had 
an alert manner, but in some way gave you the idea of 
philosophic quiet. He dressed with scrupulous neat- 
ness, but in rather old style. When they went away I 
accompanied them to the gate, and felt as if we were 
old friends. The children, not perceiving the august 
visitors, came running around the comer of the house. 

“ Ah !” Mrs. Emlyn said, looking .at them, “ these 
are the children ? They are very pretty, the eldest one 
particularly. I am sorry that they’re not old enough 
for Haomi.” 


40 


MISFITS. 


But the colonel took them up and talked to them, 
and seemed to like them. When they got in the car- 
nage Mrs. Emlyn leaned out and said, “ We’ll send you 
the things when the man can be spared to bring ‘them. 
And you must come and see us if you are^iH the right 
age, any of you.” 

And then she laughed again, and they drove away. 


CHAPTEE nr. 


0]sr THE SAHDS. 


^ Upon the wings of wild sea-birds, 
My dark thoughts would I lay, 


And let them bear them out to sea 
In the tempest far away. ” 


Faber. 


DAY or two after tliat I went down to the beach, 



■Ax. -vvith Sophia and the children, for the whole 
afternoon. Sophia took the children and sat behind the 
bank, and turned her back to the ocean, which she 
despised, and sewed. The children naturally did not 
stay with her, but wandered over to where I sat, close 
by the waves, with a great gray blanket spread out on 
the sand, enveloped in shawls. It was the first warm 
day of the season, but the wind was strong, and cool 
enough to make all the shawls acceptable, sitting still. 

“ Sitting still, and doing nothing,” I knew that was 
what Sophia was saying to herself testily as she pricked 
her fingers and looked over the bank at me. That was 
always what I seemed to be doing. Considering that the 
children’s summer clothes were not even yet cut out, 
perhaps it was rather shiftless. But I was not thinking 
about the children’s summer clothes, nor yet their 
winter ones. What was I thinking of as I sat there 
hour by hour, while the great waves broke at my feet, 
sucking the sand back in their retreat, and then spread- 


141 ] 


42 


ON THE SANDS. 


ing it smooth again before me, while the little bubbles 
burst up through it, and the sand fleas scampered across 
it? I watched the blue horizon, across which, at far 
intei^^als, a white sail drifted. I gazed up and down 
the long stretch of beach, lonely and bare, and noted, at 
either point, where my vision ended, the pillar of cloud 
that the spray made against the far sky. I don’t think 
a sand-piper ran along the sand that I did not notice, 
nor that a gull swept above the blue tide that^ did not 
follow out of sight, nor that a wave broke at my feet 
that I did not curiously scan. I did not think abqut 
the past; I did not speculate upon the future; I had 
no great thoughts such as the sea seems to give to others ; 
I did not want any one to read or talk to me ; I did not 
want to read or talk myself ; I liked to see the children 
playing a little way from me, but it annoyed me to have 
them come and prattle by me, and make demands upon 
my attention. When a great wave, green and crystal, 
came thundering in from sea, and burst upon the beach, 
I had no greater thoughts than speculation whether the 
next incoming one would be as high and would rush up 
as far upon the sand. I made a pillow for myself of a 
si? awl ; I drew another over me ; it was delicious and the 
sun shone warm ; I lay content and idle while the half 
hours lapsed away. I don’t know whether it was exactly 
right to be so vacant and indolent, but it seemed just 
the medicine for my sick and thought-sore mind. 

The afternoon wore away; the children were still busy 
at a great hole which they had spent two hours in mak- 
ing broad and deep, when I idly saw them reinforced 
by a third child — a tall, slight, girl of twelve, perhaps, 
with a great profusion of yellowish-brown hair upon 


ON THE SANDS. 


43 


her shoulders, and a sun-burned, pretty face, b.ue eyes, 
and a bang that reached nearly to her eye-brows. 

‘‘ This is the melancholy JS^aomi,” I thought, but a 
great wave rolled in that moment, and I returned my 
gaze to it, and wasted no more thought upon her. By and 
by the children’s voices at my elbow forced me to 
abandon a sea-gull to its fate, and look up. [N’aonii stood 
shyly before me, with a child in each hand, her face 
radiant with happiness. 

Mayn’t they go home with me ?” she said ; “ it isn’t 
far ; they want to see my rabbits.” 

“ Ask Sophia if there’s time,” I said, smiling up in 
her pretty face. 

They ran over to Sophia, l^aomi carrying Baby part 
of the way. Sophia evidently took the opposition, for 
Naomi and Maidy both looked extinguished, and Baby 
was crying and stamping with her little foot, and pull- 
ing at Naomi’s hand, in the direction of the house, which 
rose behind the sand-hills, not quarter of a mile from us 
along the beach. At first I thought Sophia very cruel, 
but then changed my mind, and reflected how far the 
afternoon had waned. Certainly we ought even now 
to be getting ready for the march. But Sophia should 
settle the matter ; she didn’t mind breaking their hearts 
as much as I did, and I looked away across the opal- 
tinted sky and sea, and lost myself again in re very. 

Not for many minutes — a whoop, a shout, I don’t 
know what, sounded from behind the sand-hills, and 
looking back in the direction whence it came, I saw 
the young man, whom I had come to recognize as 
the tutor, emerge from behind them, waving his hand 
to Naomi, and trying to attract her attention. The 
beach was very wide, and I was down at the water’s 


44 


ON THE SANDS. 


edge. I pushed the shawls back, and listlessly sat watch- 
ing them all ; the jerks of Sophia’s head, the stamps of 
Baby’s foot, the faces of the disappointed children, the 
gestures of the new-comer, who could not get them to 
see him. He was dressed as when ! had first seen him ; 
now he carried a gun, and a game-bag slung over his 
shoulder. At last he succeeded in catching Naomi’s 
ear, as he approached her along the top of the sand-hill. 
She dropped the children’s hands and fiew towards him. 
What he had to say to her pleased her very much, for 
her face brightened, and she gave a gesture of delight. 
But then her eye falling on the children, she looked 
disappointed again and pointed to them. He made a 
suggestion ; she pointed to Sophia, and shook her head. 
He shrugged his shoulders : then they both looked to- 
wards me, and after a consultation, she sprang down the 
bank and came running towards me. 

Meanwhile the young man threw himself down on 
the beach grass and took out the charge of his gun, and 
busied himself about something in the bag at his side. 
Naomi breathlessly said, as she stood before me : 

“ Oh, please can’t we take the children home in the 
cart ^ Mr. Macnally has just come for me to go to the 
village, and he says they can go too, if you’ll let them. 
And we’ll take good care of them, and we’ll leave them 
at your house when we come back. Please let them 
go ; I’ll hold Baby, myself, so she sha’n’t joggle out, 
and Maidy shall sit on Mr. Macnally’s lap — Euby is 
very gentle, and Mr. Macnally is such a careful driver- 
PleaseP 

It certainly was a great deal the easiest way of get- 
ting them home, and I consented. Sophia wouldn’t 
like it, but neither would she like carrying Baby all the 


ON THE SANDS. 


45 


half mile, home. It was only a question of degrees of 
disapprobation, and it seemed for once as if the chil- 
dren might have the benefit of the doubt, and do as 
they asked. I only hoped they’d let me alone and 
wouldn’t bother me any more about it. By the ar- 
rangement, I should get a half hour more by the waves, 
so I pulled the shawls about me, and lay down a little 
more on my elbow. 

But more bother was to come. Sophia came labor- 
iously across the heavy sand to me, to utter her protest; 
the children looked after her in keen suspense, the 
young man began to take an interest. 

“ You don’t mean to say,” she said, as soon as she 
could speak, for panting, “ that you told that strange 
girl that the children could go home in the cart with 
her and that — that — man, there ? ” 

“ Why'fibt? Yes, I told her they could.” 

“I suppose you want them killed? I should as 
soon think of turning them adrift in a sail boat. 
That — man always drives as if he was pursued, and 
the cart’s nothing but a death-trap. I won’t take 
any responsibility about it.” 

“ Oh, I don’t ask you to. Nothing will happen to 
them. I’m sure ; but if anything does, I won’t blame 
you. I’ve told her they might go — I can’t take back 
my word. One must be civil to one’s landlord, you 
know.” 

“I know,” returned Sophia, with a sort of hiss, set- 
ting her lips very tight, and turning away. I only 
feared there would be another reference to me, there 
was so prolonged a conversation, but at last I saw them 
go away, towards the house. Baby in Mr. Macnally’s 
arras, and Naomi and Maidy close at his heels. They 


46 


ON THE SANDS. 


were all gazing at him with intense approbation. He was 
tossing Baby over his head, the last I saw of them, as 
they disappeared on the other side of the sand-hills. 
Sophia gathered up her work and went her way, with- 
out a w)rd, leaving me to get the shawls home as I 
oould 


CHAPTER V 


UNCONVENTIONAL FOR A FIRST CALL. 


** Hk limbs were well set, an’ his body was light, 

An’ the keen-fanged hound had not teeth half so white; 
But his face was as pale as the face of the dead. 

And his cheek never warmed with the blush of the red; 
An’ for all that he wasn’t an ugly young bye, 

For the divil himself couldn’t blaze with his eye. 

So droll and so wicked, so dark and so bright. 

Like a fire-flash that crosses the depth of the night I” 

Samuel L(yoer. 

F rom that day, Naomi spent almost as much of her 
time at the cottage as at Happy-go-lucky ; her aunt 
must have been gratified at the kindness with which she 
took to the little misfits. She put Baby to sleep, she 
taught Maidy her letters, she went to house-keeping 
with them both, out in the lilac-bush ; they had tea in 
the bam, on the balcony, under the box-tree, every- 
where, in fact, that tea could be taken. She went 
home, by strict orders, to the superior meal of dinner, 
and naturally had her breakfast before she came to us, 
but tea in some form and on some part of the premises, 
she always took at the cottage. She was a delightful 
little mother, and so perfectly happy in her position 
that even Sophia was reconciled to the intrusion, par- 
ticularly as it gave her so much more time for those 
terrible summer clothes. She pould be entirely trusted 

[ 47 ] 


UNCONTENTIONAL FOE A FIEST CALL. 

with the children, out-Sophiaing Sophia in regard to 
damp grass, and being a perfect martinet in the matter 
of manners. 

We were favored tenants. All the promised things 
were sent, and a great many more. The carriage 
stopped nearly every day to bring some vegetables 
from onr landlord’s early garden, or some fish or crabs 
from the bay, or some addition to onr rather slender 
kitchen furniture. Once or twice I had gone down to 
the gate and received the gifts out of the carriage win- 
dow from madame herself. The colonel had come in 
twice about the kitchen chimney, and altogether we 
felt that we were very comfortably placed. Our letters 
were brought from the mail every night by some one 
from Happy-go-lucky: we seemed quite taken under 
its wing. When it stormed, the man from Happy-go- 
lucky stopped to take our orders to the grocer : when 
we were “ out ” of anything unexpectedly, we had no 
hesitation in hailing him as he passed to the village, 
and making him our messenger. I had not yet paid 
my visit there; two rainy days and a headache had 
prevented. 

A third rainy day was just ending ; the children 
had been reinforced by Haomi, who had come across 
the fields, all water-proofed and India-rubbered. Tliey 
had had their tea, in a spirit of adventure, in the gar- 
ret. I had had mine alone, in the little dining-room ; the 
wood fire in the parlor was blazing, and the lamp was 
lighted ; I was sitting beside it with a nice book. The 
children were below with Sophia in the kitchen, when 
I heard a step on the balcony outside, and then a knock 
atthed^or. I knew it was the mail, and hurried to 
open it. Mr. Macnally stood there, very dripping, with 


UNCONVENTIONAL FOR A FIRST CALL. 


49 


a package of letters and papers in his hand, which he 
was assorting. 

“ I beg your pardon,” he said, looking up and see- 
ing me. He tried to take off his cap, but the wind did 
it for him, and also distributed some of the letters on 
the floor, as he stooped forward to catch the light, and 
a little stream of water ran across from the door to the 
oil-cloth on the hall. The gale put out the parlor lamp 
at the same moment. 

“ It’s too bad,” he said ; I think those are for you, 
but I can’t be sure. If you’ll let me, I’ll look at them 
by the flrelight.” 

So he shut the door against the blast, and, coming 
into the parlor, knelt down and examined the letters by 
the blaze from the Are, while I huiried to re-hght the 
lamp. Just as this was accomplished, and he was lianding 
me the letters that belonged to me, the children rushed 
up stairs and into the room, headed by Haomi. 

“ Mr. Macnally,” she cried, “ I thought it was you. 
Aunt Penelope told me that I must go home with you, 
or whoever brought the letters. Car\^t you wait a 
little while, just a little while ? Please, can’t he ? So- 
phia is going to let us pop some corn ; we’ve got it all 
leady. The children want to see it so — they haven’t 
ever seen anybody pop corn — they’ll be so disappointed. 
Won’t you? Don’t you think he might ?” 

The little ones added their clamor ; in the midst of a 
rather embaiTassed parley which they took for an assent, 
they, with gestures of delight, flew down-stairs and in 
a moment returned with the corn and with a shovel. 

“ It’s to be done here, is it ?” said the tutor, putting 
his ulster in the hall. “ That looks as if you wanted me 
3 


60 


msrCONVENTIONAL FOR A FIRST CALL. 


to help you. But I thought people popped corn in the 
kitchen.” 

“ Only when they can’t get a parlor to pop it in,” 
cried Naomi, going down on her knees by the hre. 
“ Besides,” lowering her voice, the kitchen’s much 
more particular than the parlor here.” 

That was soon evident. The parlor wasn’t particular. 
The ashes were dragged over the hearth, up to the very 
verge of the rug. The half -burned sticks broke in two 
and rolled to the sides of the Franklin, the smoke 
puffed into our faces, the sparks scintillated around 
our hands. The coals, which had been piled into a heap 
in the center, grew gray, and fresh pine and more wood 
had to be put on. It was surprising how much had to 
be done to get things in condition to begin. I had to 
find paper, Naomi had to go down-stairs for kindling 
wood. We all crowded around the fireplace, and as the 
plot thickened, went down on our knees upon the rug. I 
held Baby in my lap, and tried to keep her from getting 
into the tire. Naomi held the shovel over the coals, and 
Mr. Macnally put in the corn and stirred it. Maidy 
crowded in wherever there was least room, and looked 
over the lowest shoulder. When at last the right heat 
was obtained, and the first grain of corn yielded to the 
pressure, and burst suddenly into a pretty white blos- 
som, Maidy gave a shriek of delight, as if at a feat ot 
jugglery. Mr. Macnally laughed, and, pulling her into 
the circle, took her before him on his knee, and put the 
stick into her hand with which he had been stirring the 
corn. 

‘‘ You poDr little Cockney,” he said, “ aren’t you glad 
you’ve come to the land where the pop-corn grows ?” 

Whenever a grain popped,both the children shrieked. 


UNCOISrVENTIONAL FOR A FIRST CALL. 


51 


an I ^^’aomi, who was a blase popper, langbed with pat- 
ronizing freedom. The tutor held Maidy by brute 
force, or she would have thrown herself into the coals 
in her excitement, and it was only by a firm hold that I 
kept Baby from grovelling in the ashes. By the time 
the last grain had blown into whiteness, all the faces of 
the party were scorched, and everybody’s hands were 
grimy from the ashes. 

“ There, Maidy,” I said, “ that’s the last one ; now 
you must really get further from the fire,” for Maidy, 
being the stirrer, was of course in the forefront. 

No, Maidy didn’t want to get ba(ik ; she wanted 
more, and she began to cry, and say Naomi must go 
down to the kitchen and get more corn. 

“ Why,” said the tutor, withdrawing her a little 
from the heat, “ now’s the time to eat the corn. Naomi 
will get a plate.” 

Mr. Macnally, why did you tell her that ? Sophia 
never would consent. Popped corn is highly in-di-gest- 
ible,” cried Naomi, with importance. You have spoiled 
it all.” 

“ I’m awfully sorry,” he said. “ At the risk of being 
disingenuous, Maidy, then I must tell you it is highly 
in-di-gestible, and we never do anything with it but 
play it is a snow-storm. Shall we play it is a snow- 
storm ?” 

Maidy was not appeased, only perplexed by the hard 
words ; at this moment Sophia appeared in the doorway. 
I began to feel the ignominy of being on the fioor, with 
three untidy children and a strange man. I don’t know 
why Sophia’s presence should have roused these feelings, 
but it did ; I was not accountable to Sophia. I got 
'ipon my feet in some way, and pul Baby on hers. Mr, 


52 


UNCONVENTIONAL FOR A FIRST CALL. 


Macnally did the same, and as his back was towards 
Sophia he made a funny gesture of straightening a cravat 
which did not exist, and smoothing down his hair, of 
which there was a growth of about an eighth of an inch. 
Undoubtedly this was meant for Naomi’s amusement, 
for she seemed to understand him, and giggled. 

Sophia disdained to look at any of us. With her 
eyes averted, she told me she had come to take the 
children to bed. Maidy began to cry violently and 
cling to Mr. Macnally, in whose arms she still was. 
Baby struck out at her, and said, “ go ’way, bad thing,” 
and held tightly the skirt of my dress. 

“ Isn’t it pretty early?” I said, hesitatingly. “ Can’t 
you let them stay a little longer ? ” 

I caught an amused smile flit over the stranger’s 
mouth ; his eyes were discreetly on the ground, and I 
could not see their sparkle. The sight of the smile 
emboldened me to say, ‘‘ They can stay up for twenty 
minutes more, if you’ll come back for them then.” 

Sophia went away without a word. It was all very 
well for Naomi and Mr. Macnally to look relieved and 
merry ; it was I who would have to take it to-morrow. 

“ Now for the snow-storm,” cried Maidy’s friend, 
setting her upon his shoulder, and giving her a handful 
of the corn. Maidy showered it down with great satis- 
faction over every body, while Naomi gathered some of 
it up industriously for repetitions of the storm. By 
and by the supply grew short, so much of it was lost 
among the chairs and tables; Maidy looked dissatisfied. 

“ These second-hand showers, Maidy, are apt to run 
short. It’s the worst of them. Can’t we do something 
else to make ourselves happy ? ” 

And her cavalier was proceeding very gently to take 


UNCONVENTIONAL FOR A FIRST CALL. 


53 


her down from his shoulder, when she began to cry, 
liking her position. 

“ For shame ! ” cried Naomi, “ when Mr. Macnally 
has been so good to you ! ” 

“These second-hand mothers are hard upon little 
girls, ar’n’t they ? ” he said, kissing the little hand that 
clung about his neck, and not offering to take her down. 
Naomi blushed. 

“ Sophia always tells me to make her mind. She 
wouldn’t trust her to me if I didn’t.” 

Thereupon Baby, seeing how much was to be got 
by crying, cried, and demanded to be taken up upon 
the other shoulder. 

“You see,” exclaimed Naomi, “somebody must be 
firm.” 

The tutor and I both laughed ; I evidently didn’t 
count for much in my household ; but though I 
laughed, I did not like it very much. 

“ If your great-grandmother Naomi will permit,” he 
said, with a bow in the direction of that young person, “ I 
shall be very happy to have you on the other shoulder.” 

“ Oh, yes,” cried Naomi, forgetting her wrongs in a 
new thought. “ And dance an Irish jig with them, as 
you did that day on the beach ! Please, Mr. Macnally, 
it would be so jolly. Please, mayn’t he ? He won’t 
make much noise.” 

“ Why don’t you ask Sophia ?” I said. She wag 
fiying off, taking me seriously, when I called her back. 
“ It isn’t necessary to ask Sophia this time,” I said. 

“Then he may? Oh, what fun. Mr. Macnally, 
you will, won’t you ?” 

“I must ask you to excuse me,” he said, rathei 
shortly. 


54 


UNCONVENTIONAL FOE A FIEST CALL. 


“ But the Baby said Naomi, snubbed. W on’t 

you let her have a ride on your shoulder, anyhow ?” 

Mr. Macnally knelt down like a camel, while I put 
Baby on his other shoulder. He held each one by the 
hand, and rose up, balancing them carefully. They 
screamed with delight while he gave them a ride 
through the circuit of our apartments. There was a 
great row while they were out in the dining-room ; I 
didn’t know but that the Irish jig was beginning, but 
they were all subdued and respectable when they reap- 
peared in the doorway of the parlor. To get through 
this door, it was necessary for the camel to go down on 
his knees again, which he did with great ease. He 
had the sort of figure that gave you the impression it 
would be no inconvenience to him to roll himself up 
like an India-rubber ball and be shot off the moon ; 
he would surely land on his feet in South Berwick if 
he meant to appear there. 

“ Now,” he said, after another tour of the disor- 
dered little parlor, going down on one knee before 
Naomi, “ if your great-grandmother will have the good- 
ness to bear a hand — ” 

“ I don’t think that’s fair,” muttered Naomi, a little 
nettled. I’ve had the care of them a great deal — ” 

“ I know,” he said, kissing one little scorched face 
and then another, as he set them down, “ and now I 
think, Naomi, if you’ll get your cloak and hat we will 
gay good-night.” 

Naomi, and the children after her, ran down-stairs 
to the kitchen, which seemed to have served for Naomi’s 
dressing-room, and where, no doubt, the judicious So- 
phia had put her wet water-proof before tlie fire when 
fihe first came in. 


UNCONVENTIONAL FOR A FIRST CALL. 


55 


The stranger and I began to feel a little awkwardness, 
after the children went away. We had really not ad- 
dressed each other directly, except in the matter of the 
letters, all the time he had been here. He had a down- 
looking, rather shy way when it came to talking to me, 
that seemed like a very yonng man. And yet, he was 
^ not a very young man, unless twenty-six or twenty- 
eight is very young ; one felt sure he was as much as 
that. His lithe, slight figure, in the inevitable blue 
flannel clothes, made him look very boyish, but his face, 
when you took that into account, gave a different esti- 
mate. His cheeks were flushed now with the fire and 
with the romp ; his eyes were keen and bright, when 
you could get a gleam from them ; his mouth was rest- 
less with mirth that it seemed an effort to subdue, and 
yet I had a feeling that I was talking to a man who was 
at least my equal in age, my senior in experience of 
life. 

I attempted some commonplace, as a woman is sure 
to do, first, while he stood by the table, looking down, 
attempting nothing. It was about the storm, no doubt, 
and when it was answered, there was another pause. 
The disordered room seemed to strike him. 

‘‘ It has bec«5:i rather unconventional for a first call,” 
he said, not looking up, but a smile spoiling the 
decorum of his face. “ Like a first call from a hurri- 
cane,” he added, moving a chair back against the win- 
dow, and setting straight a little table that had been 
whirled out of its corner by Haomi. 

“I don’t mind,” I said. “It keeps Sophia in good 
humor to have plenty of things to put in order. It’s 
the best thing that can happen.” 

“ Far be it from me, then,” he said fervently, put- 


56 


UNCONVENTIONAL FOR A FIRST CALL. 


ting the chair and table back to a fraction of the same 
angle in which they had been standing. He had a 
delightful little accent, English or Irish, or perhaps 
Canadian ; I quite liked to hear him speak, and 
found myself speculating as to whether I couldn’t 
speak that way if I tried. Then Naomi and the 
children came tumbling into the room again, and 
waterproofs and umbrellas and overshoes were all 
that came into discussion. As the tutor knelt down to 
light his lantern at the fire, Maidy came up and pressed 
close to his side and slipped her little hand under his 
arm, and watched him silently. It was such an aston- 
ishing action for the shy child. When he went away, 
she followed him to the door and held up her face to 
be kissed, though the wind nearly swept her back 
into the room. Then she ran to the window and 
pressed her face against the pane, and watched the 
little spark as it wavered along through the dark- 
ness, in the direction of Happy-go-lucky’s hospitable 
lights. 


CHAPTER YI. 


TEA, TKEATED UNCONVEOTIONALLY. 

“ ’Twas nice, of course, to hear from you 
About their wild, Bohemian ways; 

One likes to know how i)eople do 
Wbo are not in the world. — ” 

Olrig Orange, 

T HAD meant to go to pay my first call at Happy-go- 
Lucky, a mountain of crape ; even getting out my 
^ best dress and veil from the damp little closet in the 
wall where they spent their days. But it was too incon- 
gruous and absurd ; I could not fancy myself dragging 
them through the dust of the road and the damp of 
the grass, and appearing with dignity to make a visit of 
ceremony upon my landlady. So I gave the Shinne- 
cock my fiannel dress to brush with extra care for the 
occasion, and taking Maidy for companion, went un- 
conventionally across the fields in the direction of the 
house. When we went in at the gate two or three 
great dogs bounced out at us, sending Maidy into par- 
oxysms of fright, but as many men came out from stable 
and garden and carriage-house and called them ofi. 

When I got to the steps of the house, I was again 
in doubt. Every stage of the visit had been attended 
with doubt ; whether I should come morning or after- 
noon, whether I should wear crape or flannel, and now 
3 * [571 


58 


TEA, TREATED IDSrCONVENTIONALLY. 


wlietlier I should go up tlie front steps or the side 
steps, or wliere. 

For wide flights of steps led to the broad veranda 
on each side of the house, and I could not distinguish 
any definite ‘‘ front-door.” In fact, the house seemed 
all doors and windows, mostly open ones. We went 
finally up the western steps, trusting, when there, to 
light upon a knocker or a bell or some distinguishing 
mark that visits were in order. The veranda was very 
wide, running entirely around the house ; there was a 
roof only over certain portions of it, forming porches 
on each side. These were in shade at some time 
or other of the day, and were amply provided with 
chairs, hammocks and settees. At the windows un- 
shaded by them, the sunshine streamed into rooms 
that, so near the sea, were all the better for it. The 
western porch was now flooded with the afternoon 
sun ; no one was sitting there ; if there were a door 
there, it was not distinguishable from a window, and 
was wide open. I went rather uncomfortably to the 
rear, where the veranda was connected with a platform 
that led out to the crest of the sand-hill overlooking 
the sea. Visitors could not reasonably be expected to 
enter from the ocean, so I went back and tried the 
north, or, more properly, the front side of the hou'^e. 
But here more open casements, more disarranged and 
untenanted chairs, and no bell, no knocker. The ver- 
anda was inclosed below, and formed the kitchen, laun- 
dry, and servants’ rooms. Here I could distinguish tbe 
servants’ voices, and laughter, and sounds of work. 
How could I make them hear me ? I tried to knock on 
the floor with m.y umbrella ; it probably sounded like 
the tap of a woodpecker, and elicited no reply. It 


TEA, TREATED UNCONVENTIONALLY. 


59 


would be unpleasant to have to pin my card to one ol 
the posts of the porcb, and go away. 

As I walked up and down nervously, wondering 
wbat I ought to do, Maidy suddenly dropped my 
hand and went towards the western steps. She had 
caught sight of somebody she liked, who, however, had 
not as yet seen her. Mr. Macnally came up the steps 
three at a time, whistling, and carrying a crab-net over 
his shoulder. He started when he caught sight of 
Maidy, made a gesture as if he would scoop her up in 
his crab-net, and then hurried to her and stooped to 
kiss her. 

What’s my little lady doing here alone? ” he said. 
She took his hand shyly and pointed with the other to- 
wards me, as I came around the angle of the house. 
He took oH his cap to me, which he hadn’t done to 
Maidy, worse manners. 

I’m trying to find a bell or a knocker, or a front 
door.” 

“ Have we ever a front door,” he said. “ I never 
thought of it before. Ho, I don’t beheve we have. 
We go in — ‘ promiscuous.’ W e don’t have many visitors. 
There are not many to come, you know.” 

“ All the same, it’s awkward for them when they do. 
It’s the first time I’ve been, and I ought not to be too 
unceremonious.” 

Certainly, a first call ought to be conventional : 1 
know it.” And he took his cap off again and stood 
with it in his hand, and his eyes on the fioor, and an 
unspoken jest hovering on his lips. 

“ How can I find out if Mrs. Emlyn is at home ? ” I 
said, nervously, after a pause of about a minute, which 
seemed to me much longer. 


60 


TEA, TEEATED UNCONVENTIONALLY. 


“Might I take your card to lier?” he said, and, I 
can’t tell how, he transformed himself in a moment 
into the sleekest of Jeemeses, with his cap tucked under 
his arm, holding out an imaginary salver to take the 
card. All this time he didn’t look at me; hut the 
expression of his face, his attitude, the slight serving- 
man accent with which he pronounced the words, were 
a livery and knee-breeches. 

“I haven’t got any card,” I said, almost too uncom- 
fortable to be amused. 

“ Oh ! then,” he exclaimed, with a look of relief, re- 
suming his natural expression, “it isn’t to be strictly 
point device. Perhaps you will come in, this way, 
through the dining-room.” 

We went in through an open casement, and he gave 
me a seat, and went away to find the lady of the house. 
It was an immense room, running the whole length of 
the house. I didn’t wonder Mrs. Emlyn could not 
breathe in my dining-room, if she were used to breathing 
in this. It was about forty-five feet long, with a width 
of twenty-two or twenty-three. The staircase went up 
at one end, and in the center was a great fire-place 
bricked up to the ceiling, with a fire even now smoulder, 
ing on the hearth. The furniture was heavy and old- 
fasliioned ; one or two nice pieces of tapestry hung 
against the wall, and between the windows, on the 
panels, were crossed some swords and guns, a helmet or 
two, and a few pieces of armor that perhaps wouldn’t 
bear scrutiny, but were quite effective. The fioor was 
bare, except a rug and footstool at the head of the table. 
The mahogany of the table was polished very bright, 
but on it was the dehris of a lunch which some belated 
one had recently been eating. The colonel’s pipe-box, 


TEA, TEEATED UNCONYENTIONALLT. 


61 


1 very rude affair, was nailed up between the fire-place 
and a tapestry that must have cost a pretty penny. The 
tutor had set down his crab-net in a corner as if it were 
the place in which it belonged. There were fishing- 
poles and creels and reels in another, and under the 
stairs, in full view, hung cloaks and shawls and coats of 
all descriptions, and a perfect colony of hats and caps. 
The windows, which were very wide, were opened full 
to the strong wind from the sea and the sun now 
“ sloping to his western bower.” On one side of the 
fireplace was a box for wood, on the other a basket for 
^Naomi’s little Blenheim, who always slept there. A 
table in a corner was piled high with school-books ; 
under it was a croquet box with the mallets sticking out 
from the half-closed lid. The silver on the sideboard 
was shining beautifully, and the window panes were 
crystal clean, but on the sideboard stood a dripping glass 
jar of sea- weeds, and before one of the windows a great 
tin pan, in which crabs and scallops and star-fish battled 
about, dismayed at their imprisonment. A pool of 
water, gradually widening on the handsome wood floor 
was not likely to improve its polish. It certainly was 
not an untidy room, but if one might say so, a most 
liberal one. All crafts and tastes seemed to have the 
freedom of it, and everything was tolerated but dust 
and dirt. 

There had been sounds of knocking at many doors 
upstairs, and presently Mr. Macnally came down. 

“lam sorry to say there is nobody in the house. I 
don’t know where Mrs. Emlyn and Naomi have gone. 
It is possible that we may find them on the beach.” 

So while Maidy clutched his hand, I followed him 
out upon the veranda and across the platform to the 


TEA, TEEATED UNCONVENTIONALLY. 

sand-liill, whence we could see up and down the leach. 
The beach looked wide and lonely, not a human being 
in sight. Maidy looked disappointed. “ I want to see 
Naomi’s rabbits.” 

“ Next time ; we must go home now,” I said, feeling 
uncomfortably that I was making a call upon the tutor. 

Next time sounds a great way otf. Mayn’t she 
come with me to see the rabbits ? I will bring her back 
to you in a little while.” 

That was not objectionable ; so going down on the 
beach, to be oil the premises and beyond the imputation 
of paying him a visit, I sat down on the sand and waited. 
The afternoon was perfect, the sky and sea blue, the 
breeze fresh, the air sun-dried and warm. I had just 
got soothed into a dreamy forgetfulness of my recent 
embarrassments, when a great shout from the sand-hill 
made me turn around; Naomi was springing down, fol- 
lowed by Maidy, and the Colonel and Mrs. Emlyn stood 
on the top, waving to me. 

‘‘You’re to stay to tea!” cried Naomi, panting. 
“ Aunt Penelope says you are, and she’s come out to 
fetch you. Oh, such fun !” 

And she caught Maidy in her arms, and whirled her 
round till they both fell, exhausted, on the beach. Mean- 
while, I got up, and hurried up the sand-hill, to meet 
my host and hostess. They renewed the invitation to 
tea, and Maidy and Naomi danced a war-dance around 
us till the matter was settled. 

“ What will Sophia say ; you always go to bed at 
seven, and how shall we get home if it is dark ?” 

“ Oh, we’ll see to that ; we’ll make Mr. Macnally go, 
or Ned, if he is busy. Come, Maidy, come and see the 
rabbits.” 


TEA, TEEATED UNCONVENTIONALLY. 63 

Then the colonel asked me to walk aronnd the place 
^ith him, and see the water- works, and the garden, and 
the stables. The hostess excused herself, and went on 
the piazza to read, while we went to look at these im- 
provements. It is always a doubtful pleasure to be 
dragged about country places to look at improvements. 
It is only possession that gives a charm to rams, and 
wheels, and forcing-beds, and model stables. The 
colonel was glad to find a listener ; he did not let me otf 
from anything. He had evidently spent a good deal of 
money, which nobody would have guessed if he hadn’t 
told them. Tlie lawn looked as if it would have been 
the better for a little of the attention that was given to 
the calves and colts, and a tithe from the water-works 
ought to have been exacted to make a better gate and 
fence. But those things showed, and could take care of 
themselves ; the things that did not show and were 
practically useful were what the colonel set his heart 
on bringing to perfection. It was a very amiable trait 
in the colonel’s character. All the same, I was glad 
when the tea-bell rang, and we went back to the house. 
Not, however, without some pauses and procrastinations 
as the water tank was passed. "W e were so long on the 
way that when we reached the dining-room the lady of 
the house was already at the table, looking a little severe 
and pouring out the tea. It was past seven o’clock, but 
the days were at the longest ; I remember it was 

“ St. Bp’rnaby bright, 

The longest day and the shortest night.” 

The sky was brilliant with the sunset, through all 
the west and north windows of the dining-room, stand- 
ing open. The tea-table looked very pretty, with nice 


64 TEA, TREATED UNCONVENTIONALLY. 

old blue china and heavy silver, but it seemed to me a 
, happy accident, for I never saw a table less carefully 
arranged. The dishes seemed principally congregated 
about the colonel’s and some one else’s plate, which I 
later found to be the tutor’s, .^aorni, who had fol- 
lowed us in, reached across and put a glass of ferns and 
daisies as near the middle of the table as she could get 
it. Her hands were very dirty; her aunt guessed, 
rather than saw, that they were, and told her to go and 
wash them before she came in to tea. Haomi said 
Maidy’s were dirty too, so they made up a party, and 
went off quite cheerfully to wash them. 

I had a seat with my back to the fire-place, and my 
face toward the windows. It seemed to me I had never 
seen a room so delightful, nor windows so satisfying. 
One looked over miles of green and level country, dot- 
ted here and there with farm-houses, buried in thick, 
low trees planted to keep ofi the winter winds. The 
white sails of a wind-mill caught the eye ; or, in the 
distance, the tall church spire of a neighboring vil- 
lage. Beyond, against the horizon, rose a long low line of 
hills, purple in the evening light. This was what one 
saw of earth, but of sky, where, ever, did one see so 
much ? To one brought up among the hills, or bred in 
city streets, it was like a revelation. It was an arch, 
not a patch ; a firmament, not a strip. 

All this while the colonel was carving a chicken 
with concentrated interest ; Mrs. Emlyn was arrang- 
ing her tea-cups, and I was between sky and earth, 
now gazing at the glories of the west, now filled 
with chagrin that Naomi did not bring back Maidy, 
feeling somehow, that the ignominy of the re- 


TEA, TREATED UNCONVENTIONALLY. 65 

tarded tea belonged to me. It was not a convivial 
thing, this sitting down three to a table laid for seven. 

‘‘ I am so sorry about the children not coming,” 
I said timidly to Mrs. Emlyn. 

“ Oh, I am used to it,” she said. “ They all know 
what they have to expect. If they are half an hour 
late, they wait on themselves. I will not keep servants 
on their feet all night.” 

Presently the tutor came in, and then the little 
girls, and last, just as the clock struck the half hour, 
hied, a handsome, sunburnt lad of fifteen, whom I had 
not seen before. He gave me a shy, pretty bow when 
he was presented, and took his seat between his aunt 
and me. The servant looked up at the clock, and 
stolidly took her departure. It must be acknowledged 
she was no great loss, her services had been merely 
nominal before. Mr. Macnally alone looked a little 
anxious as she withdrew, and glanced with curiosity 
towards Mrs. Emlyn, I suppose to see if she were not 
intending to make an exception, as they were not 
alone. But there was no such intention. I don’t think 
the Princess Dolgouruki would have had an exception 
made in her favor, in that household. 

“ There isn’t any marmalade,” cried Haomi, in a 
disappointed voice. 

“ I told you,” said her aunt serenely, “ that unless you 
asked me for it when I was in the store-room, you should 
not have it. I can not be interrupted at my meals.” 

Naomi refused to be resigned. “ Maidy wants some, 
too,” she said. 

“ Maidy wants nothing of the kind. You are trying 
to put her up to it.” 

“ Maidy, don’t you want it ?” 


66 


TEA, TREATED UNCONVENTIONAI LY. 


Mamma,” said Maidy in an embarrassed whisper, 
“ what does she mean ? What is marmalade 

Then we all laughed, and Naomi grew red. 

“ Never mind, Naomi,” said the tutor, “ we can’t 
always be certain of our wdtnesses.” 

“ You want some, I know. Aunt Penelope, Mr. 
Macnally wants some marmalade.” 

“ What is it ? I don’t know even what it’s like.” 

“ It’s like what you ate half a jar of last night, and 
that’s the reason that there isn’t any now.” 

‘‘ My fish !” cried Ned, stung by a sudden recollec- 
tion. He hadn’t got as far as marmalade yet, but was 
eating chicken and potato salad with a ravenous appe- 
tite. “ My fish have been forgotten. Aunt Penelope, 
the cook promised them for tea. Mayn’t she send them 
up ?” 

No, that she mayn’t. You know as weU as I do 
that it’s half-past seven o’clock.” 

‘‘ Then I suppose I’ll have to go and get them for 
myself,” and he got up and disappeared in the direction 
of the kitchen stairs. 

The colonel watched him with a look of admira- 
tion, but I noticed he always spoke to him with a sort of 
severity, as became a man and a guardian. He lived 
over secretly in the handsome boy his past youth and 
its pleasures. While Ned was dishing his fish in the 
kitchen, Mrs. Emlyn had been brooding over the dis- 
appointment to Naomi in the matter of the marmalade. 
With all her majesty, she had the tenderest heart, and 
it destroyed her comfort to think the child was denied 
anything. 

“ You don’t mind how much trouble you give,” she 
exclaimed at last, getting up, unable to bear the rank- 


TEA, TREATED UNCONVENTIONALLY. G7 

ling tlionglit any loLgor. Everybody had forgotten 
about marmalade by that time, and while she hunted 
for the right key on her buncli, and walked away like 
Lady Macbeth, we all wondered. 

“Aunt Penelope ! ” cried A^aomi, divining, “ I don't 
wan' the marmalade. I wish you wouldn’t get it.” 

And full of compunction she sprang up and ran after 
her aunt, who did not look back at her. 

“Macnally,” said the colonel, “did I get you out 
that Sauterne yesterday ? No? Then while the store- 
room is open, and I think of it. I’ll go and look for it. 
You’ll want it with your fish, if Ned should ever bring 
it up.” 

And the colonel pushed back his chair and went 
away in the direction of the store-room. Mr. Macnally 
glanced round the table at the four chairs pushed back, 
the four napkins lying in various outspread attitudes, 
the four unfinished plates, and cups of tea ; and then 
his eyes met mine with a look compounded of apology, 
deprecation, and very keen amusement. I was very 
glad he did not say anything, it would have seemed dis- 
loyal. No doubt his instincts could be trusted, for I 
don’t suppose he thought of speaking, from the way in 
which he applied himself to Maidy’s entertainment 
across the table, but I did not know him enough to be 
sure he wouldn’t, at the first moment. It was such a 
situation, most men would have felt at liberty to make 
a joke about it, particularly a man who seemed to have 
lisped in comic numbers, if one could judge from the 
habitual expression of his eyes. 

Meanwhile Maidy was eating a great deal more than 
was good for her ; she was not used to such a bewilder- 
ing profusion of nice things. I had been rather too 


68 


TEA, TREATED UNCONVENTIONALLY. 


much embarrassed to enjoy my tea very much, but I had 
enjoyed the sunset opposite me, and the novelty of 
everything, and the study of human nature, though I 
had not reached the stage of knowing that I studied it. 
First FTed came back, bringing his hsh, then the colonel 
with his bottle of wine, then Mrs. Emlyn and Kaomi, 
each with a jar or two of marmalade. The fish seemed 
such a temptation that they all began again. All ex- 
cept the lady of the house, who, by a contradiction that 
seemed inevitable, always ate less than other people, not- 
withstanding her grand proportions. 

“ Naomi,” said her aunt, “ why don’t you eat the 
marmalade you’ve given me such trouble to get out for 
you? You haven’t even opened the jar.” 

“ I didn’t know there was going to be fish,” said 
Naomi, a little abashed. 

“ And Mr. Macnally and Maidy, that, were in such 
a state for it. I think it was all a conspiracy to get me 
to the store-room.” 

“ The fish was sprung upon us, Mrs. Emlyn ; we 
didn’t know there was going to be fish. It’s all Ned’s 
fault, he should have given us warning. Colonel 
Emlyn, I’d like another slice of it, if you’ve no objec- 
tion.” 

Colonel Emlyn seemed to like nothing better than 
supplying those two hungry plates, and filling up the 
tutor’s several times empty glass ; he looked severe, 
but his eyes were kindly and affectionate. Mrs. Emlyn 
had taken up her knitting, and sat half pushed baclv 
from the table. Naomi’s appetite was at last appeased, 
and Maidy would no more of jelly and cake. Ned and 
his tutor were still eating and chaffing, while they all 
looked on and occasionally joined in the skirmishing. 


TEA, TREATED UNCONVENTIONALLY. 


69 


It liad been a very prolonged meal : the sunset had died 
down into a yellow glow that overspread the sky, but 
did not illuminate the room. 

“ Naomi, if these young gentlemen are going to eat 
all night, you will have to light the candles.” 

“ Not for me,” cried Mr. Macnally, ‘‘I can see my 
way to the Sauterne, and that is all I ask.” 

‘‘Well, then, she’ll have to light them for me, for 
I’ve only just begun.” 

Naomi grumbled at having to do anything for 
her brother, but her aunt put her down promptly, and 
she spent ' a good deal of time in lighting the candles 
in two silver candlesticks with three or four branches 
apiece, and in setting them on the table. Maidy got 
down from her chair when Naomi rose to get the can- 
dles lighted, and in an innocent fashion made her way 
around to the other side of the table, where the tutor 
sat. He lifted her upon his knee, and pushed his plate 
back, and occupied himself thenceforth in low engross- 
ing chatter with her, into which she entered with a se- 
date interest that was very pretty. Finally Ned de- 
clared himself satisfied, and as the waitress had come back, 
her own meal being ended, and had begun languidly 
0 take the tea-things off the table, we moved away. 

Then I was introduced into another room, that I 
1 )und only second to the dining-room in interest. This 
was the parlor, which was separated from the dining 
room by a curtain. It was on the ocean side of the 
house, about half the size of the dining-room, the othei 
lialf being the bed-room of Mrs. Emlyn, into which this 
opened. It was a more civilized room than the dining- 
room, having walls stained a sort of old gold, with cedar 
wainscoting and mantel. There were several good 


70 


TEA, TEEATED UNCONVENTIONALLY. 


pictures, a piano, and plenty of well-worn easy-chairs, 
and one or two so:^s. A large square table with a lamp 
on it was covered with books and drawing things. To 
this the children naturally gravitated, as their territory ; 
a smaller lamp and a smaller table, in another corner, 
seemed the quarters of their aunt. The colonel, evidently 
less gregarious, established himself in a great chair be- 
tween the fire-place and the dining-table, on which the 
maid had put another lamp, and smoked and read the 
jiaper, or listened to the chatter from the other room as 
seemed him good. Mrs. Emlyn invited me to go out 
on the piazza, and we walked up and down together for 
a few moments. 

“ It is good to get the glare of the lamps out of one’s 
eyes,” she said, “ and the noise of those children out of 
one’s ears.” 

It was, indeed, a change from the lighted room to 
the solemn starlight of the dark skies, and the deep 
monotone of the sea breaking on the beach beyond us. 

Youth is good,” she said, “ and high spirits and 
the ferment that they bring ; but at my age, one has to 
have frequent silences to rest one from them. You, 
I suppose, like it, and it doesn’t tire you 

‘‘ I am not used to it,” I answered. “ It might tire 
me, for very long. It pleases me now, because it’s such 
a novelty.” 

“Wait till your children are a few years older, and 
you’ll have enough of it. It seems a great way ofi, I 
suppose, but it will be here before you know it. When 
Naomi and Ned first came to us — it seems but yesterday 
— they were babies in the nursery ; and now they are 
such great creatures, with wills of their own, and indi- 
viduality developing one way or the other fast enough 


TEA, TREATED UNCONVENTIONALLY. Yi 

to frighten one. I’m quite easy about i^aomi, she’s 
sweet-natured, and good-brained, and a comfort. But 
Ned is such a strong young colt, I feel as if none of us 
could hold him in, or turn him, if he got started in the 
wrong direction. And, who knows how soon he may ? 
It is a great thing that we have got such a man as Mac- 
nally for him. He is like a boy with him ; but I am 
satisfied that he keeps his authority in spite of it, and 
that Ned studies as he never did before.” 

“ Has Mr. Macnally been with you long ?” 

“ Only since January: Ned had been at school, but, 
to tell you the truth, we had to take him away. He 
wouldn’t study, and he would get into scrapes ; silly 
boy scrapes, with not much harm in them, to be sure ; 
but we were worn out with pulling him out and starting 
him fresh. It was all waste time, base ball and secret 
societies. So the colonel advertised for a tutor, and 
this one turned up, and he seems the very man for us. 
We dreaded it very much. Naomi’s governesses had 
always been such a nuisance in the house. But really 
I don’t know now how we could get on without Mac- 
nally. When Ned has to go, I think we’ll have to have 
Naomi prepared for college, just to keep him.” 

“ He is an Englishman ?” 

“No, an Irishman. Didn’t you notice his accent? 
He had only been in the country a few weeks, I believe, 
when he came to us. I’ve often wondered why he 
came away from home. Everything about him, his 
clothes, and toilet things, and all that, without being 
dainty exactly, look like a petted sort of son. But he’s 
a reticent fellow, after a certain point, up to which he 
is frankness personified. I only hope we never shali 
be disappointed in him.” 


72 


TEA, TREATED UNCONVENTIONALLY. 


“ Ar’n’t you afraid he will upset the lamp I ex- 
claimed, rather irrelevantly, for I had been gazing into 
the room, and it was impossible not to tremble for the 
furniture, with what was going on. 

‘‘No,” said Mrs. Emlyn, calmly, “I’m used to it. 
They have broken one or two, but the oil is non-ex- 
plosive, and it won’t hur+ the floor. I’ve taken the 
rugs away from that side of the room, and there is no 
cover on the table. If they spoil their own books and 
drawings it is their look-out.” 

“ But if they burn up my Maidy V 

“ Oh, there isn’t any danger ; Mr. Macnally keeps 
her under his arm. I should always be willing to trust 
him with children ; he seems to love them. There is 
one thing about him, he can always stop an uproar by 
a word. They don’t often go too far.” 

We watched the uproar, till it was quenched, as she 
had predicted, in a magical sort of way, and Naomi 
picked up the sofa cushions, and pushed the hair back 
from her flushed face ; and Ned shook himself, and got 
his loose flannel shirt straight above the belt, and took 
up a paper and settled himself to read. The tutor, mean- 
time, did not seem to have lost his care of Maidy, who 
was looking elated, but a little frightened ; he led her 
over to the piano, and took her on his knee, while he 
played some soft melody, and whispered songs, I should 
think, into her ear. Mrs. Emlyn and I walked up and 
down in the starlight for a little longer, and then went 
in to get ready for my going home. 

“ I am sorry to trouble anybody,” I said ; “ it isn’t 
very dark ; I don’t think I should be afraid.” 

“ I’ll go,” said Ned, getting up, and looking awk 
wardly polite. 


TEA, TREATED UNCONVENTIONALLY. 


73 


“ You’ve got to study your Latin,” said Naomi, 
officiously. “Mr. Macnally said you had. He said 
he’d have to take Maidy and her mother home himself ; 
that you must study all the evening.” 

Ned’s eyes said, mind your own business, and a 
good deal else, but he did not dare to be more explicit, 
before me. I didn’t think tlie^tutor looked particu- 
larly pleased with Naomi’s zeal in the arrangement of 
alfairs ; he got up from the piano and, putting Maidy 
down, said Ned could be excused for the little while 
that he would have to be gone. 

“ I’m so sorry to have to trouble any one,” I said, 
stooping to tie a handkerchief on Maidy’s neck. 

“ You see how much you got by it,” muttered Ned, 
as he passed by Naomi to hunt for his cap. 

The colonel was fast asleep by his lamp in the din- 
ing-room, so we tried to be very quiet as we went 
through the room. They all accompanied us to the 
steps of the piazza. 

“I want you to go,” said Maidy, pulling at the 
tutor’s hand. 

“Didn’t you hear,” he whispered, “I’ve got to 
study my Latin lesson ?” 

Naomi went with us to the gate ; Mrs. Emlyn and 
Mr. Macnally were satisfied with saying good-bye on 
the steps. Maidy was dissatisfied, and looked back re- 
proachfully while she could see her friend by the light 
from the windows, and when she couldn’t she began to 
fret and say she was tired, and wanted to be carried. 
Ned offered to carry her, but she wouldn’t consent, and 
clung to my dress peevishly. I am afraid we were not 
so agreeable as to make Ned glad he had come, except 
in so far as he felt that he had circumvented Naomi. 


CHAPTEK Vn. 


BRINGING THE MAIL. 

» 

** This is the curse of life I that not 
A noble, calmer train 'f' 

Of wiser thoughts and feelings blot 
Our passions from our brain; 

But each day brings its petty dust 
Our soon-choked souls to fill, 

And we forget because we must, 
And not because we will.” 


Matthevo Arnold. 


HE next evening, as I sat the lamp in tbe 



little parlor, I heard the latch of the gate 
opened, and the tutor’s light, quick tread upon the bal- 
cony steps. The door stood open, so he could not 
knock, but took a step into the little hall, and paused, 
in sight from the parlor door, open also. He lifted 
his cap, and said he had brought my letters, or, to be 
more accurate, my paper. 

“ My mail never amounts to much,” I said, getting 
up and taking the paper, in its stale-looking wrapper, 
and sighing a little as I thought of how I used to watch 
for the coming of the mail. All the same,” I added, 
correcting the sigh to a smile, “ I’m very much obliged 
to you for bnnging it. Won’t you come in f ’ 

He was a little better dressed than he had been on 
the occasions on which I had met him ; that is, he had 


[ 74 ] 


BRINGING THE MATT. . 75 

a coat on, and a white shirt, and a cravat. This led me 
to think that perhaps he had meant to come in. 

“ Perhaps I ought to pay Miss Maidy a visit,” he 
said. “ She has earnestly requested it.” 

She has gone to bed ; I am sorry not to give you 
the excuse.” 

“ I don’t want an excuse, but a permission,” he said, i 
taking the chair on the other side of the table, while I 
sat down again. As on the other occasions when we 
liad been alone together, his manner lost its confidence, 
and he became, though always well-bred, shy and rather 
piquantly embarrassed. He seemed to need the defense 
of the children to get on well with me. When he was 
throwing pillows at Hed the night before he had not 
seemed to mind me much, though, to be sure, I had been 
on the piazza, and not actually in the room ; and at the 
tea-table he had not shown much embarrassment while 
he ate all that fish and tortured Hed about his Latin. 
These refiections made me a little less embarrassed my- 
self ; it made me feel older than he. Besides, that pass- 
ing shade of thought about my want of interest in letters 
that might come to me now, had its effect in making me 
— what shall I say — dignified, self-respectful, apart. 
The past cast this faint sort of shadow upon me, and 
made me appear what was not quite natural to me, and 
what I had not appeared before since I had been in this 
place, devoid of old associations. 

“ It is quite a walk for you to the office ; do you 
go every night ?” 

“Ordinarily, I like the walk after tea. I would 
rather leave Hed wrestling with his Anabasis than be 
present during the struggle.” 

“ It isn’t always a victory, I’m afraid.” 


76 


BRINGING THE MAIL. 


“ Scarcely a victory, poor boy. I don’t think I ever 
6aw anybody who hated study as he does.” 

“ Do most boys feel that way ? Did you ?” 

“ I ? — ah — well, I don’t know. I liked play a good 
deal more than work, of course, but I took hold better 
than Ned. I hadn’t the same temptations as he, every- 
body watching me, and being so important. There 
were such a lot of us there wasn’t much account made 
of how we felt about it ; we hadn’t much chance if we 
didn’t work ; we had to strike out pretty well or we’d 
have gone down, and nobody to cry about us either.” 

“ You mean at home v” 

I suppose this was passing that certain point where, 
according to Mrs. Emlyn, Mr. Macnally’s frankness ended 
and where his reticence began, for, with a slight contrac- 
tion of the forehead he said — ^yes, among his brothers 
and some young cousins who were brought up with 
them. Then he went back instantly to Ned, and the dis- 
advantage that it was to a boy to be made too much of. 

“ That seems to me the mistake about the bringing 
up of children in this country, in the better classes, I 
mean. Whether it is that the people are new to wealth 
and don’t know how to manage it, or are simply trying 
to correct the errors of their own less favored child- 
hood, and are going too far the other way, I don’t know. 
But it strikes me all the time that too much is beins 

o 

done for children ; they’re not only being pampered 
and stimulated in their pleasures and amusements, but 
they’re being worried over and experimented upon in 
their studies. I don’t mean this as regards Ned and 
Naomi’s guardians; circumstances have made the 
trouble with them.” 


BEINGING THE MAIL. 


77 


“ I don’t believe I know enongh of the bringing np 
of children here or anywhere to judge.” 

I taught a little while in a school before I came to 
Colonel Emlyn, and I saw a great deal of it.” This 
did not seem to be a pleasant recollection, and we had 
evidently again reached the point alluded to by Mrs. 
Emlyn. We seemed bringing up against it all the time, 
and I wondered whether I was catechetical, or what. I 
certainly did want to know something about him. He 
piqued my curiosity all the time. I had often found 
myself wondering about him ever since the day he 
picked Rex up by the hair. I had not made up my 
mind whether I thought him handsoroe or not, whether 
I thought him covertly amused at everything American, 
or not ; whether I thought him very humble, or very 
proud, or secretly chaling at his inferior position ; 
whether he thought everything the Emlyns did was 
perfect, even to the way they had the table laid, or 
whether he condemned them in his supercilious British 
heart. I did not even feel that I knew what his opin- 
ion was of my intelligence ; but I felt with a certain 
feminine intuition that he did not disapprove of my 
appearance. 

‘‘ People are so hard upon American children,” J 
said. “ I suppose I ought to be studying up the sub- 
ject to prevent my two from being like the rest of their 
relations. I’ve read Herbert Spencer, and Miss Sewell, 
and Miss Edgeworth, and I approve very much, in turn, 
of what each one says about the bringing up of chil- 
dren ; but, somehow, it doesn’t seem to make any dif- 
ference in the way I bring mine up. Maidy has her 
own individual way of being naughty, and I have my 


78 


BEINGma THE MAIL. 


own individual way of getting lier over it, and none of 
the examples seem to tit.” 

“ Then Maidy is sometimes naughty ? I shouldn’t 
have thought it of her, the pretty little atom.” 

“ Yes, I suppose there is the germ of the worst 
American child in her.” 

“ Heaven forbid ! I am sure it is the genii of a 
bad little Irish girl. I can trace it in her, now you 
speak of it.” 

“ Well, little as I know of American children, J 
know less of Irish.” 

“ Except your washerwoman’s. I didn’t mean your 
washerwoman’s, though that’s the general standard of 
the nation here, I find.” 

“ Haturally, when only washerwomen come here.” 

“ It doesn’t show a strong imagination to be satis- 
fied with believing in a nation of washerwomen.” 

“ Oh, as to that, I don’t suppose anybody does believe 
in that, but it’s difiicult always to keep up a faith in 
what one doesn’t see. How, when one has been strength- 
ened by seeing an Irish gentleman in the fiesh — ” 

“ If the mise en scene isn’t too great a strain upon 
the credulity,” he said, and I fancied a flush passed 
over his face as well as a quick smile. We got out of 
that somehow, and back upon the mail, the post-office, 
the post-master, and the late hour that the train came 
in. 

“ It’s absurd,” he said, “ having the morning paper 
at this hour of the night, when it might be here at 
lOon.” 

“ If it did not come till to-morrow night, I should 
not care.” 

“Then you never read the papers 


BRDTGING THE MAIL. 


79 


“ I don’t care mucli about them, and as for letters, 
I get almost none. I would clieerfully sign off my in- 
terest in the post-office till September for a very small 
Bum. I hope they don’t tax me for the support of the 
post-office ? How are post-offices sustained ?” 

“That shows, indeed, that you don’t read (he 
papers, and that you’re not informed about the ‘ institoo- 
tions ’ of your country. But it surprises me less to hear 
that, than to hear that you don’t care for letters, and 
are not counting the hours to mail-time from the 
moment you get up.” 

“ South Berwick contains all that interests me ; I 
can’t think of where a letter could come from thit 
could interest me in the least.” 

“ Somebody might leave you a fortune.” 

“ They wouldn’t know where to direct it, if thej 
did.” 

“ I suppose the lawyers would keep it in a pigeon- 
hole till you got back in September from your exile.” 

“ It isn’t exile. I’m no more out of the world here 
than I am in the city. There’s nobody to take the 
trouble to write to me, that is the plain truth. I haven’t 
any members of my family left ; the few friends I had, 
when I was a girl, live so far away I have lost sight of 
• them, and interest too, I am afraid. And as to the rela- 
tions of my — my children, they are equally remote from 
here, and I never have known them well. I came to 
the city a stranger, and all the time I have spent there 
I have been absorbed, and selfish perhaps — a great 
deal of the time too ill and too unhappy to seek 
friends, or to endure them if they had sought me.” 

I felt viciously candid. I had an impulse to show 
him I was insignificant, and that there was no mystery 


80 


BRINGING THE MAIL. 


about my past, only obscurity. I did not look at him, 
so I did not know at all how he received these un- 
necessary statements. I sat leaning back in my chair 
with my hands in my lap, looking into the fire, which 
now and then blazed up, and now and then sent out a 
little shower of sparks. Sophia had bought a cord of 
hickory, and the kindling was of drift-wood, which the 
children helped her to gather on the beach. Though it 
was June, we never failed to have a fire at night. 

“ So you’ll understand,” I said, taking my eyes from 
the fire and glancing at him with a smile, after a silence 
of several minutes, “ why I am not hkely to get many 
letters while I am living at South Berwick.” 

He was not looking at the fire, but at me, intently, 
but he glanced away. 

“ I understand,” he said, in a forced sort of voice, 
as if he had not expected to be called upon to speak 
that moment ; “ and that you won’t be overcome with 
gratitude for what I may bring you from the office.” 

At that instant a stick broke in the middle, sawed 
in two by a sharp little persistent blaze beneath, that 
had not intermitted. One end rolled across the little 
hearth of the Franklin stove, and toppled over on the 
rug. We both sprang furward ; Mr. Macnally caught it 
by the uncharred end and threw it back upon the 
andirons. 

“We haven’t any fender ; it is — ” 

“ A burning shame,” said he, shaking the ashes from 
his hand. 

“ Yes, a burning shame ; I hope you’ll tell the colonel 
and he’ll have to hunt one up for us, or take out a new 
insurance on his house.” 

“I am afraid fenders are at a premium. I have 


BRINGING THE MAIL. 


81 


heard a good deal about it since we have been here. 
The colonel has bought all the old chests of drawers 
and three-cornered chairs and andirons within a radius 
of six miles ; but it strikes me he has failed to find a 
fender.” 

“ Perhaps, outside that radius, — don’t you think he 
may be persuaded ? I think Pll try myself.” 

“ Should you like to go ? Perhaps we might or- 
ganize a fender hunt.” 

‘‘Oh, that would be delightful. Meanwhile, Mr. 
Macnally, you are not making that fire up properly, if 
you’ll let me say so. The stove is too shallow for a back- 
log ; it smokes the moment that you put one on. You are 
used to the Happy-go-lucky chimneys, which are built 
on more extravagant principles.” 

“ They certainly ought not to smoke ; that dining- 
room affair has had enough spent on it to build an or- 
dinary house. From what I can learn, the colonel de- 
voted three years of his life to it.” 

“ And does it ever smoke now 

“ Parely ; it may be said to draw fairly well, except, 
of course, when the wind’s in certain quarters.” 

“ The dear colonel ! Isn’t he nice ?” 

“ I’m glad you think so ; nobody could be nicer.” 
This he said gravely, and with a certain earnestness. 

“ And Mrs. Emlyn,” I said. “ I think she is differ- 
ent from any one I ever knew. I am so unused to 
strangers, I was inclined to be very much afraid of her. 
But now I think I entirely admire her and feel almost 
at home with her.” 

“ She is so devoid of self-consciousness and so gen- 
uine, she ought to inspire confidence in any one she 
wants to please.” 

4 * 


82 


BEINGmG THE MAIL. 


“I liope she will always want to please me. I should 
not like to be any one she didn’t want to please. As you 
say, she is so genuine, it wouldn’t occur to her to dis- 
guise the fact.” 

Mr. Macnally laughed a little, but he did not say any- 
thing. It annoyed me that he should think it necessary 
to be so discreet. Loyalty, I suppose, he would have 
called it, but it seemed to me only an unnecessary dis- 
cretion. I concluded we would not further discuss 
people to whom he felt himself so bound as not to be 
natural in speaking of them. 

When he went away, Sophia swooped in and began 
to bang the shutters almost before he shut the gate, and 
to put out the lights. 


CHAPTEE YIII. 


IN EE BEASS. 

“ Le coq fran^ais est le coq de la gloire, 

Par le revers il n’est point abattu ; 
n chante fort, s’il gagne la victoire, 

Encore plus fort, quand il est bien battu.” 

I T M^as a cold, bright morning ; I wrapped myseK in 
a warm shawl, and walked up and down in the sun 
before the house, and watched the children at their play. 
Their noses looked a trifle blue, as they frisked about in 
their stout little coats and tried to open the gate with 
their be-mittened little fingers. Sophia was busy about 
some household matter, and had left them in my charge 
for an hour or so. The sun was growing a httle warmer, 
und when I was tired I sat down on the horseblock out- 
ride the gate, and rested. As to the children they never 
seemed to tire, but purred about in contented little 
games into which, I am ashamed to say, I did not even 
try to enter. It rather bored me; and when I had 
opened the gate ad nauseam^ and had found Baby’s 
mitten for the twentieth time, I distinctly admitted to 
myself that I wished Sophia would get through her work 
and take the children ofl my hands. A good brisk walk 
would have been much more to my mind. 

I was sitting on the horseblock, harboring these 
discontented thoughts, when I heard a shout of greet- 
'ng behind me, and turning, saw the beach cart, with 

[ 83 ] 


84 


m KE BRASS. 


the children and their tutor, drawing up to the gate. 
Mr. Macnallj threw the reins to Ned and sprang out, 
coming towards me. He looked quite handsome as he 
stood, cap in hand, before the horseblock. 

That fender-hunt,” he said. “We have come to 
see if you will go with us to-day.” 

I think he was afraid of a refusal ; he looked quite 
earnest and a little shy, and as if he were prepared to 
have to urge it very much. When he saw the delight 
which lighted my face at the prospect of getting rid of 
opening and shutting the gate for Baby, and assisting 
at Maidy’s little tragedies, he looked much relieved. 

“ I should like nothing better,” I said, “ if only So- 
phia will come and take the children. I promised her to 
keep them till she got through some stupid work she’s 
set her heart upon.” 

I I’an in to see. Of course, she wasn’t through ; 
of course, she couldn’t have them for an hour, at least. 

“ Oh, Sophia, you’ll have to !” I cried, made bold by 
my desire to go. “ It isn’t every day I get a drive. You’ll 
have to let the things wait, or bring the children in.” 

I didn’t look at her ; I knew she was desperately an- 
gry, and I ran away to get my gloves, feeling very selfish 
and very young. When I came back I found Baby in 
Naomi’s arms and Maidy in her friend’s, the tutor’s. 

“Won’t you let them go too said the latter. 

“ rti, no !” I exclaimed. “ Baby has to take her nap 
in half an hour. It would be insupportable. It would 
spoil the drive.” 

“ Then let me go, mamma — let me go. I’ll be so 
good !” cried Maidy, in trembling suspense. 

“ Impossible, Maidy ; you know there isn’t room for 
you. You’ll stay like a good girl and play with Baby, 


IN KE BRASS. 


85 


and I’ll bring yon borne some wild flowers if 1 find 
some.” 

Maidy bid ber face on ber friend’s shoulder and 
sobbed beart-brokenly. Baby meanwhile was scream- 
ing and scolding and slapping all in a breath. 

“ Let Maidy go, won’t you said the tender-hearted 
tutor, sotto voce. “ There is room, and I’ll take care of 
her. She won’t be any trouble, if you don’t mind.” 

“ It would be rather unreasonable in me to mind 
having my own child. Well, if you don’t, she can go.” 

Then Baby alone remained to be disposed of. I 
took the poor little termagant from Naomi and ran in 
to . give her to Sophia. But Sophia would not even 
turn around from the closet shelves, which she was put- 
ting in order, and look at me. I had to kiss poor Baby 
and set her down on the floor, and call out my direc- 
tions to Sophia, without any response. Outside the 
door I paused, half minded to give up the drive, and go 
back and take the Baby up. But through the door I 
caught sight of the gay-looking cart, and the horse with 
his best harness on ; Maidy’s radiant face, with her 
arms around the tutor’s neck ; Ned’s picturesque suit, 
Naomi’s gypseyhat ; no — I couldn’t give it up. As soon 
as we were out of sight Sophia would pick up Baby and 
put her to sleep ; why should I let her stubbornness 
spoil everything ? So I went out, but with rather a 
troubled look. 

“ This seat is the most comfortable,” said Mr. Mac- 
nally, putting me in the front seat. “Ned, who’s 
going to drive ?” he added. 

Ned hated the back seat and being with Naomi, 
and showed very plainly that he wanted to. “ Yery well, 
don’t break our necks for us,” Mr. Macnally said. 


86 


IN KE BRASS. 


putting Maidy in at the back, and jumping in after 
her. 

hTed got in beside me, and took the reins as if he 
felt a little ashamed of having been so selfish. But that 
didn’t last long ; he was too familiar with the sensation 
to be oppressed by it. 

“ It’s awfully cold,” he said, putting a blanket over 
my lap ; he meant to make up by being very consider- 
ate to me. The tutor had already muffled Maidy in 
wraps, and held her on his knee. Naomi was holding 
on with both hands. I am sorry to say that was what 
people on the back seat had to do in that cart, when it 
went fast. 

“ How about school ?” I said. “ Isn’t this an unusual 
hour for you all to be going on a lark ?” 

“ Oh i” cried the tutor, “ didn’t we tell you ? Well, 
it is an anniversary — we have so many feasts of obliga- 
tion at Happy-go-lucky, it is difflcult to remember. 
But this is a birthday, or something of that sort. For 
so small a family, we have a great many birthdays. 
This is the third since we came down from town, if I 
remember right.” 

“ But they weren’t all birthdays.” 

“ They were all holidays, however, and very imper- 
ative. I don’t think we could have existed if we hadn’t 
taken holidays.” 

But whose is this 

“ Shall I tell you ?” cried Naomi in jerks, for we 
were going very fast. 

There was a sound as of the suppression of these 
jerks. 

‘‘ It isn’t a birthday,” said the tutor. “ It’s an anony- 
mous sort of celebration ; it’s of doubtful origin — an 


m RE BRASS. 


8Y 


apocryphal event; it isn’t generally noticed in the 
family; but the day was fine, Iced’s lessons were 
unusually hard, and Naomi hadn’t written her French 
exercise. Ned, if you drive so fast I sha’n’t be able to 
articulate another word.” 

“ I don’t see the use of articulating fibs,” said Ned, 
I bumping fast over a bridge going out of the village. 

I’ll tell you ; it’s Mr. Macnally’s birthday if you 
want to know,” cried Naomi, in gasps, from the rear. 

‘‘‘However’ did you find it out?” I asked her, 
looking back. We slacked up now going up a hill, 
and Naomi was able to express herself quite audibly. 

“ I’ll tell you all about it.” 

“ Not if I can help it,” said her tutor, throwing an 
afghan over her head. The smothered explanations from 
under it didn’t enlighten me much, and Ned, who was 
out of reach, said, “ Naomi found it in one of his books 
when she was snooping about his room.” 

“ I didn’t snoop !” cried Naomi, getting her head out 
of the afghan. “ Mr. Macnally sent me up to find a 
book on his table, and the window was open, and a per- 
fect gale, and all the things blowing about, and his 
prayer-book and his portfolio on the fioor. And I 
picked them up and the fiy-leaf was loose and I put it 
back and it had the date on it, and l couldn’t help see- 
ing. I don’t call tliat snooping.” 

“No harm done, Naomi,” he said. “We shouldn’t 
be here but for that fiy-leaf and that gale. It’s an ill 
^nnd that blows nobody good.” 

“ I told Aunt Penelope about it, and she said we 
should have a holiday, and Mr. Macnally didn’t want 
to, and got quite in a pet about it, and talked to Uncle, 
and said he couldn’t do us any justice if we had so 


88 


IN BE BEASS. 


many holidays, but Aunt Penelope wouldn’t give it up, 
and said she’d — ” 

“Come, Naomi,” said the tutor decisively, “tat- 
tling’s as bad as snooping. We’re here, and that’s 
enough.” 

“ Where are we, please? For I don’t think I’ve 
ever been out on this road before.” 

We were now in a sandy road leading through a 
forest. The wind could not get at us, and it was quite 
warm and sheltered ; and having to go slow on account 
of the sand, Mr. Macnally and Naomi got out and 
walked along beside us. I also think they were glad 
to be excused a little while from the back seat. The 
foliage of the trees was not very heavy and the sun 
came down warmly through them. The woods were 
full of ferns and squaw-vine in bloom, and huckleberry 
and blackberry vines in blossom, and new leaves of all 
sorts of pretty shades. Naomi had the happiness to 
find a strawberry, nearly ripe. Maidy got down too, 
and walked. At last the road grew harder and Ned 
insisted that they should all get in again, “ if we wanted 
to get back to-night.” 

The wood seemed endless ; but I, being on the front 
seat, didn’t want it to end particularly. 

“ Turn to the left, Ned,” said the tutor. “ There’s 
a hamlet over in that direction that I want to beat up 
for fenders.” 

Presently we came upon a little opening in the 
woods, and then a field or two, and then, on slight ris- 
ing ground, we came in sight of a large, old-fashioned 
farm-house, with a fence around the front half of it, and 
the rear half open to a road, which led up from the 
highway. There was a colony of out-buildings, more 


IN EE BRASS. 


89 


or less shabby ; but tbe front of tbe bouse was trim, 
and bad box-wood borders to tbe path, and some flow- 
ers in raised beds, and some hydrangeas in big green 
boxes on each side of the door. Tbe small panes of 
tbe windows, and tbe fan-shaped light over tbe door, at 
each side of which there were little fluted pillars, all 
looked like pre-air-tigbt antiquity. 

“ I am sure they must have fenders here, if any- 
where.” 

“ ‘ Just the place for a snark,’ ” the tutor cried, leap- 
ing out. We all waited anxiously while he knocked 
respectfully at the door. 

“ Louder, louder,” called ITed and hTaomi, after we 
had waited a great while. 

They called louder, and he knocked louder, till one 
would have thought the panel of the door must yield. 

‘‘ Try the other door.” The fence that separated 
the front from the back of the house was a high picket ; 
the gate was barred. 

ISTo connection with the corner store,” said the 
tutor. “ They live here in the morning, when they do 
their work, and ' in the front in the afternoon, when 
they have their ‘ good clothes ’ on, and they don’t speak 
to themselves if they meet in the passages.” 

“ Try the other door ; it’s too cold to wait all day,” 
cried Ned. He put his hand on the fence, and leaped 
over it, and scrambled through long grass and many 
shrubs, to the front door. He pounded long and loudly 
there, but got no answer, and came back at last, shak- 
ing his head. 

“ They know what we’ve come for,” he said, “ and 
they’ve barricaded themselves in up in the attic. I can 
see a frieze of fenders through that little dormer win- 


90 


IN EE BEA88. 


dow, and the end one is all bristling with andirons, and 
tongs and shovels. All such lovely brass.’’ 

“You don’t half knock,” said isTed. “If you’ll 
come and hold this horse. I’ll make ’em hear.” 

“ Yery well,” said the tutor. “You may try your 
fist at it and welcome. Mine’s used up.” 

So he sprang back over the fence, and stood by the 
head of the horse while ISTed got out and went up to 
the door with the valor of fifteen. While he was 
furiously knocking, Mr. Macnally sprang up and took 
his place beside me. 


“ Qui va S la chasse 
Perd sa place,” 

he said, as he gathered up the reins; “come, Ned, 
they’ve all gone to a funeral, even the dogs and cats. 
It’s nothing but a waste of time.” WTien Ned turned 
around and saw the trick that had been played upon 
him : “ All right,” he said good humoredly, as he got 
up behind ; “ I’ll pay you up for it yet.” Not a dog 
had barked at us, the house was as deserted as if no one 
had ever lived in it, and yet we saw a thin curl of smoke 
issuing from one of its chimneys as we drove past and 
looked anxiously back at it. The next house to which 
we came was a miserable, unpainted little place. Ned 
had only got down when a woman and a troop of un- 
tidy children came out to see what brought us. 

“We are looking,” said the tutor blandly, “for a 
brass fender. We thought perhaps you had one to dis- 
pose of.” 

“ Lor, no,” said the woman, deprecatingly, as if a 
brass fender were a patent of nobility. “We haven’t 


IN EE BEASS. 


91 


got none of them things. Did you try to the Squire’s 
jest above here?” 

‘‘We tried, that is, we knocked — a little — at the 
door, but we think they must be out — or something. 
Nobody came to answer.” 

“ The three girls is deaf. You should a knocked 
quite smart and lively.” 

“Ah, yes. That possibly was our mistake. We must 
try again. In the meantime, perhaps you have some- 
thing to dispose of — ” 

“Early potatoes, do you mean, or garden sass?” 
asked the woman. “Well, not now, but we shall have 
next week or thereabouts.” 

“I didn’t mean in that line, exactly. We want 
something old-fashioned, you know — something in 
brass. You haven’t any candlesticks or snuffer-trays or 
andirons or even bellows with brass noses ? Anything 
in brass, you know. Even a warming-pan, if you should 
have one that you didn’t use.” 

The woman shook her head. “We haven’t got 
anything but one brass candlestick that one of the 
Squire’s girls give me last housecleaning, and that’s 
been broke and sodered up again, and broke again.” 

“ Oh, let us see it,” I cried. “ Do you think it 
would do for a birthday present ?” 

“ Depends upon what kind of a birthday it was 
returned the woman. 

“ If it wasn’t much of a birthday, do you think it 
would do ?” said the tutor, insinuatingly. 

“ Might.” 

“ Please bring it,” I cried. The woman brought it, 
while the children in the cart tittered, and the children 
by the gate gazed, open-mouthed. She certainly had 


92 


m RE BRASS. 


not undervalued it. It was very lame and battered, 
but I bargained for it, and carried it ofE at twenty-five 
cents. We all agreed it was best to go back to the 
Squire’s, and wait till some one appeared at a door or 
window, whose attention could be arrested, and then 
appeal to some other sense than that of hearing. 

“ I’m prepared to camp out in the front yard,” said 
Mr. Macnally. ‘‘Maidy and I can live on very little. 
We could fast for a week without much inconvenience. 
In that time, some one would, no doubt, come to the 
window.” 

We went back, and again drove up to the rear door 
of the house. Ned, for form’s sake, got out and began 
to knock a little, faintly. Yery promptly the door was 
opened, and a tall, grizzled old man appeared in the 
door-way. Ned was so taken aback he could not speak, 
and the old man looked inquiringly from one to the 
other of us. He was so dignified and well-mannered 
that we were quite unnerved. 

“ This is brazen, indeed,” said the tutor, low, while 
Ned stammered, something, helplessly. “ I should as 
soon think of asking the colonel to sell me his water- 
wheel, or his favorite calf.” 

“ Somebody must help him,” I murmured ; and then, 
in despair, leaning forward, I said quite loud : 

“ Oh, please, sir, if you will excuse us for troubling 
you — but we’re greatly in need of a fender for a Frank- 
lin stove. Somebody told us you had some old things 
of that kind, and we took the liberty of coming.” • 

He came forward and said he should be very glad 
to oblige us ; he thought perhaps he had such a thing in 
the garret ; he would go and look. The girls, he said, 
were a little hard of hearing, but perhaps we’d come 


IN EE BRASS. 


93 


inside and wait. We declined this offer, and he turned 
into the house, followed by Ned, who did not think it 
would be polite for everybody to say no. The host 
showed him into a sitting-room, and then closing the door, 
went up into the attic for the fender. The sitting-room 
was not empty ; an elderly woman, with a cap on, sat 
darning stockings by a stove. When, at last, she saw Ned, 
she got up and apologized, in a very low voice, and said 
she was a little hard of hearing, and sat down again to her 
work. She looked up at him occasionally in a pleasant 
manner. Ned felt restless, and as if it weren’t very 
civil not to be making a little conversation with her, 
when she looked 'so pleasant. He was embarrassed, and 
overlooking the fact that she couldn’t hear him, the next 
time he caught her eye, he said, in reference to a mos- 
quito-bar at the window, which he had been looking at : 
“ Are you much troubled with insects here ?” 

She looked perplexed, got up and came softly to 
him, and said very low : ‘‘I’m a little hard of hear- 
ing,” and put the left side of her cap quite near his 
mouth. 

Ned regretted very much that he had looked at the 
mosquito-bar, or had caught her eye ; but he bravely 
repeated his insipid question, and repeated it again; 
but all without effect. She shook her head softly, and 
said she must go and call her sister Betsey — she couldn’t 
understand. 

While she was gone out of the room, Ned almost 
resolved he would go out and get into the cart, and 
leave it to somebody else to do the shouting — but ho 
was still afraid of being impolite, and stood his ground, 
though redder in the face than was usual with him. 

Presently the old woman I'cturned, accompanied by 


94 


m RE BRASS. 


her sister. This one was shorter and broader than the 
other, and had a large hooked nose, with which she 
took snuff. 

“ Abby is a little hard of hearing,” she said, below 
her breath. She didn’t quite understand ; what was 
it you was saying ?” And she also put her ear very 
close up to his face. 

“ I only said, are you much troubled with insects 
here ?” 

She indicated by a nearer approach to his mouth 
and a questioning motion that she wanted it repeated 
once again. 

He repeated it once, twice ; she shook her head. 
Abby, looking on anxiously, shook hers too. 

“ I can’t quite catch it,” she said. “ I must go and 
call my sister Phoebe.” 

So she bustled out, and Miss Abby stood by, per- 
plexed and watchful. If she hadn’t been there, there 
is no question that he would have escaped by the front 
door. But she stood quite close to him, with her 
troubled old eyes on his face. 

“ It’s very inconvenient,” she said, in a low tone, 
“ very inconvenient, being hard of hearing.” 

“ It is, very,” groaned Hed ; but he wouldn’t be 
entrapped into saying anything more. 

By the time Miss Betsy returned, accompanied by 
Miss Phoebe, the beads stood on hied’s forehead. There 
was such a hoarseness in his voice that no wonder Miss 
Phoebe had to ask him to repeat the hideous formula 
over and again. She was quite young, compared with 
her sisters, not more than sixty-hve, with a very insinu- 
ating smile, and quite a color on her cheeks. She evi- 


m EE BBASS. 


95 


dently was less deaf than they, for she got a word at 
last. 

“Troubled?” she said. “Just try again. Troubled? 
our dogs have got at your sheep ? I^o ! Something 
about the mowing machine, perhaps ? JSi o ! Just say 
it once more, if you please !” 

The two others stood close up to them, with wrinkled 
faces full of solicitude. Every time Miss Phoebe shook 
her head, indicating failure, Miss Abby and Miss Betsey 
shook theirs in sympathy. It was a dreadful situation. 
ISTed groaned and glanced despairingly around, and 
gathered himself up, and gave one final shout. It 
seemed to him the words did not mean anything ; he 
hated them ; he would have Hked to have dug them out 
of the dictionary ; it was like a night-mare. 

“ Are you much troubled with insects here ?” He 
put his mouth quite up against her yeUow old ear, he 
roared, bellowed, thundered the words into it. “I 
only said, ‘ Are you much troubled with insects here V ” 

Miss Phoebe heard ; she dropped ofi from him, for 
she had laid her hand upon his sleeve, and said “ Oh !” 
in a tone of mingled contempt, relief and incredulity. 
She repeated it to Miss Betsy, who said “ Oh !” too, in 
a tone expressing exactly the same feelings, perhaps the 
contempt a little accentuated. Then it was repeated 
to Miss Abby, whose “ Oh !” was more contemptuous, 
relieved and skeptical than her sister’s, as her suspense 
and anxiety had been of longer duration. She turned 
her back to him and picked up her darning, and sat 
down almost with a jerk. 

“ I’m very sorry,” began Hed, hot and wretched ; 
but when Miss Phoebe projected her ear at him, he 
turned and fled. When he got outside, he found us 


96 


IN RE BRASS. 


embarrassed with our riches. A fender barricaded his 
way into the cart ; a pair of andirons occupied his seat. 
I held a shovel and tongs, and Mr. Macnally had a 
warming-pan over his shoulder, mounted very high. 
The polite old Squire (whose hearing was perfect) was 
trying to find a place for a spinning-wheel between 
Naomi and Maidy. Naomi had a brass candlestick in 
each hand, and looked a little anxious for her personal 
safety. 

“ It’ll ride there,” said the farmer. 

‘‘ But where’ll I ride?” muttered Ned, anxious for 
unspoken reasons to get in. 

‘‘ What’s the matter with Ned ?” cried Naomi. He 
said something that sounded like “ Hold your tongue, 
can’t you ?” but it wasn’t loud enough for anybody to 
be sure, and left ground to hope that he was not such 
a brute. 

I hope you’ll call again,” said the Squire, with 
mild politeness, bowing us off. 

“ I know there’s some of us that won’t,” muttered 
Ned ; but it was not till we got down the hill and out 
of sight that wo heard his reasons for not wanting to. 
When we drove through the village with our spoils, we 
were the objects of much friendly comment. I think 
no more absolute nonsense was ever talked than during 
that last two miles, and no more riotous laughter ever 
heard. We were in what the country people call a 
“ gale,” and none of us had a right to be over sixteen. 
When we reached the gate of the cottage Bex fiew out 
at us furiously, and refused to recognize us. 

“ If I be I, as I do hope I be, 

I’ve a little dog at home, and he’ll know me,” 


m BE BEASS. 


97 


said the tutor, as he got out, trying, with the butt end of 
the warming-pan, to protect his knickerbockers from 
the infuriated little poodle. While the others were un- 
loading my share of the plunder, I caught the dog up 
and ran to incarcerate him in the dining-room. !N^aomi 
followed me up the balcony steps and into the parlor 
with the candlesticks. 

“ Here are all three,” she said, “ the broken one and 
all.” 

“ Oh, that reminds me, I want you all to come and 
take tea with me to-night, you and Hed and Mr. Mac- 
nally, to celebrate the birthday, you know. Here’s 
Baby, just awake, bless her little heart; I can’t go 
down again to tell them, for I’ve got to take her. Ee- 
member, you must come at half past six o’clock.” 

Haomi screamed with delight, and ran headlong 
down the steps of the balcony, and didn’t stop till she 
got outside the gate. 

“Mr. Macnally, Mr. Macnally, listen!” she cried. 
“ I’ve got something to tell you. A message, hear — ” 

I was holding Baby, by the parlor window, quite 
out of sight myself. Mr. Macnally was standing out 
by the edge 6f the road, and Haomi at the gate. He 
dropped the warming-pan, and a pair of andirons which 
he was putting in the cart, and put himself in an atti- 
tude and laid his hand on his heart, and gazed at Haomi, 
waiting for the message. 

“We are invited,” she said impressively, “invited 
here to take tea to-night, to celebrate your birthday. 
Ho you understand ? ” 

He made a somersault, and came up on his feet, 
just before Haomi, with his hand on his heart and in 
the same attitude of abandoned devotion. He said 


5 


98 


m RE BRASS. 


something which I did not catch, and then Naomi 
cried, ‘‘Well, I’ll go and tell her.” 

She came and shouted up the stairs, “We’re all com- 
ing ; I’ve got to go now, so good-bye.” 

I watched them drive off, and said to myself “ The 
mystery is solved. The i/rajpeze /” 


CHAPTEE IX. 


KEEPING A BIRTHDAY. 

‘‘Alas, the happy day I the foolish dayl 
Alas, the sweet time, too soon passed away I” 

William Morru. 

“ the sense 

Of exile from Hope’s happy realm grew less, 

And thoughts of childish peace, he knew not whence. 
Thronged round his heart with many an old caress.” 

Lowell. 

O OPHIA, tlie children from the other house are 
O coming to tea. 

“ What, that long-legged boy 
“ Why, he’s long generally. I don’t see anything 
out of proportion in his legs. What can we have for 
tea? They have such lots of things for tea down 
there, I don’t know what they’ll think of ours.” 

This assured us a good tea. I could not confess to 
her that the tutor was coming, for I knew she actively 
detested him, but I smuggled an extra plate and cup 
and saucer on the table when it was time for them to 
come, and I left it for her to suppose that his coming 
was unpremeditated, and that he had been invited after 
he came in, as was no more than civil. Notwithstand- 
ing her disgust and anger at his presence and at my 
selfish conduct of the morning, she did not manage to 
depress us very much. We had a very merry little tea, 

[ 99 ] 


100 


KEEPING A BIKTHDAY. 


with Maidj and Baby both at table, and Ned enough at 
home to eat as much as he wanted. After tea we had 
the pleasure of building a fresh fire in the Franklin and 
of trying the new fender. 

“ ‘ Four feet on a fender,’ ” said Ned, leaning back 
in a low chair and putting a pair of very dusty shoes 
upon it. 

“What’s the objection to hind feet?” said Naomi, 
who was sitting on the rug and holding Bex, and she 
put his hind paws up beside the dusty shoes. 

“ What’s the use of always trying to be so deadly 
clever ?” snarled Ned, giving the dog a push with his 
foot. 

“ It’s you who were trying,” said Naomi, enfolding 
the dog in a motherly embrace. 

“ Let dogs delight,” said the tutor. “ Celebrate my 
birthday by an absence of rows to-night.” 

“ Talking of birthdays ; where’s the candlestick ? 
Maidy, go and fetch it. I left it on the table in the 
hall. 

Maidy brought it. “I tried to clean it,” I said, 
“ but it hasn’t a great luster.” 

“It puts my eyes out,” said the tutor, shading 
them. 

“ That horrid break,” I said, “ and the patching up. 
I wish I had a ribbon that I could tie around it. Here’s 
one on my fan. I’ll have to spare you that.” 

There was a bit of lilac ribbon by which my fan 
hung from my belt, so I loosened it and tied it round 
the candlestick in a pretty knot, and hid the defacing 
sodering, and all that ; then we set it on the mantel- 
piece and lavished a great deal of admiration on it. 
The children were rolling about on the rug with Bex. 


KEEPING A BIRTHDAY. 


101 


Ked liad withdrawn his dusty shoes to the other side of 
the room, and was looking over some pictures at the 
lamp. Mr. Macnally put more wood on the fire, and 
opened the doors and windows, for it was growing 
warm. Naomi started up from the rug. 

“ Let’s play cartoons, or consequences, or something, 
won’t you ? Mr. Macnally likes games ; I assure you 
that he does.” 

“ And his taste must be consulted on at least one 
day in the year.” 

“Well, but you hnow you like it ; you’ve often said 
you did. We only want some paper and some pencils ; 
please, dear hostess, and we’ll tell you how.” 

We had altogether a very jolly evening; Naomi 
and Ned were both clever with their pencils, and as to 
the tutor, I abandoned the trapeze theory and concluded 
he was a member of the E-oyal Academy, collecting in 
disguise studies for the next year’s exhibition. I have 
those cartoons yet, yellowed, dusty. I do not laugh 
when I look at them now, alas ! . . . 

The “gale” had expended itself; we could not 
laugh so many hours consecutively. The children were 
sleepy, and Naomi and I carried them ofi to Sophia to 
be put to bed. Nothing would have induced So})hia 
to come into the room, I am sure. When we came 
back we found Ned had settled himself into a book, 
and the tutor was standing with his hand on the man- 
tel-piece gazing into the fire. I sat down in a low chair 
and Naomi knelt down on the rug and put her pretty 
yellow head against my shoulder. 

“ What a nice day we’ve had ! I like holidays. 
When does your birthday come ? ” 


102 


KEEPING A BIRTHDAY. 


“ Oh, l^aomi, don’t ask me. I don’t want to remember 
mj birthday. I don’t keep it any more.” 

I tried to speak lightly, but a quick expression of 
pain contracted my face. It was three years since I 
had kept my birthday with anything but tears and bit- 
ter recollections. All the joy and merriment of this 
day seemed frightful to me at that reminiscence. Had 
I grown childish ; had I lost all sense of my bereave- 
ment in this sudden lightening of heart? Ho wondei 
Sophia despised me and avoided me ; I hardly knew 
myself. I could scarcely keep back my tears; I 
trembled and was pale. I had an impulse to go into 
the dark room where the children slept and take them 
in my arms, and cry over them and ask them to forgive 
me for having forgotten for so many careless hours. 

Haomi went on prattling; Mr. Macnally walked 
over to where Hed sat at his book, and talked with him 
about it. Haomi’s questions were torture — Where were 
you your last birthday, where were you before ? Did 
you use to get many presents? Was that little tur- 
quoise ring you always wear one of your birthday pres- 
ents? It was the prettiest little ring. How many 
years since the birthday that you got it ? There were 
two stones that were turning just a little green ; it 
must be a good while that you have had it on. How 
iong do you think ? What does it mean when a tur- 
quoise turns green ? Does it mean you have forgotten 
about the person that gave it to you, or that they have 
forgotten about you ? 

‘‘Haomi,” said the tutor, a little quickly, “Hed’s 
found a picture of that basket-fish that washed up on 
the beach the other day. Come and look at it.” 


KEEPING A BIRTHDAY. 


103 


“ 111 a minute,” said Naomi pensively ; ‘‘ I’m looking 
at some rings. Do you believe — ” 

Naomi loved sentiment more than she loved natural 
history ; she wouldn’t have made the exchange sc 
promptly as she did, if the tutor’s voice had not had 
a tinge of authority in it which she and Ned knew 
better than to disregard. 

“ Yes, but I want you to come now, while I am ex- 
plaining it to Ned. You bothered me enough about it 
when you found it, when I hadn’t any illustration of it.” 

He made the explanation a tolerably long one, and 
I had time to recover a little from my agitation. It 
was probably the reaction from a long day of excite- 
ment, and the great change from my ordinary days, 
and my nerves were not yet as strong as I supposed 
them. When Naomi made a move to come back to 
the fire, Mr. Macnally took out his watch, and she un- 
derstood, from his gesture, that she must go and get 
ready to go home. Even this little sympathetic help, 
and the sense of being shielded from what was really 
such a trifle, unnerved me. I must have cried if they 
hadn’t gone without many more words, which happily 
they did. But a good night’s sleep restored my nerves, 
and a day or two brought me back to the common-sense 
basis of being happy when there was so much to be 
happy about. 

From that time, there was a great deal to be happy 
about. The returning tide of health, the absence of 
care, the friendship of good people, the companion 
fchip of quick and clever minds, the exhilaration of an 
unrivalled air, the stimulant of beautiful scenery, formed 
a pretty good foundation for a happy summer. It was 
not very gradual, the intimacy established between the 


104 


KEEPING A BIRTHDAY. 


cottage and the big house. We were not long in find- 
ing out that a day was incomplete when there were no 
hours spent in common. Two days in the week I read 
German with Mrs. Emlyn. I was the most indifferent 
German scholar in one sense, but no one could read 
with her, and be indifferent in interest. Her mind 
was so quick and her love for language so enthusiastic, 
she inspired even the dullest and most timid. It was 
like being pushed along by a swift skater, the exhilaration 
made one forget the ignominy of not being able to do it 
one’s self. My enjoyment gave her pleasure and 
made her pardon my inefficiency and want of training. 

I was a favorite with the colonel, who often took 
me with him in long drives about the country. Mrs. 
Emlyn feared horses, and hated driving, and when 
Haomi was in school and could not go with him, he 
was always glad to come for me. In the afternoon, 
when the children and Mr. Macnally were free, we 
often went on excursions, long sails on the bay, crab- 
bing or fishing expeditions, walks when it was cool, or 
more often drives to distant villages, which did not end 
till after dark ; and when there was no question where I 
went to take my tea. I had long ceased to care by which 
door I entered the hospitable house, or what time I came, 
or in what apparel. There was a high chair for Maidy 
always standing in the dining-room now ; even Baby 
had her private establishment in that generous apart- 
ment, and knew under what table to look for her box of 
blocks and picture-books. Rex no longer barked when 
at home the tutor came up the balcony stairs three 
steps at a time, or when ISTed thundered at the door and 
shouted “Fenders!” Haomi could pull his ears, and 
Mrs. Emlyn tread on him in her near-sightedness with 


KEEPING A BIRTHDAY. 


105 


perfect freedom. He understood the consolidation of 
interests, and behaved much better than Sophia, who 
would not allow herself to be drawn into the vortex of 
intimacy which had engulfed her betters. I am sure 
she could not have helped being gratified with the im- 
proved health of the children, nor with her own ex- 
emption from care and labor ; but she never acknowl- 
edged it, nor ever ceased to fret for the time when we 
should leave this mouldy shanty and go back to the city. 

I remember particularly the effect one of these 
tirades had upon me. It was a lovely July morning, 
warmer than most days in that bracing climate. A 
strong breeze from the sea tempered the heat of the 
sun. I was on the balcony with my work, Mr. Mac- 
nally was sitting in the hammock, with his gun leaning 
against the railing, and a game-bag over his shoulder ; 
Naomi was playing with the children at the foot of the 
steps ; Ned was busy loading some shells on the horse- 
block, Rex was lying on the edge of my dress, newly 
washed, and white and fluffy, with a blue ribbon on his 
neck. The sunshine fell on the gray floor of the 
balcony through the leaves of the trumpet-creeper, and 
here and there lighted up one of its long red blossoms. 
The roll of the sea sounded far off and dreamy ; its 
blue line was faintly seen across the green and level 
meadows. The children’s voices were a happy music 
in my ears. The wind that kissed my cheek was soft 
as velvet. I leaned back in the low chair in which 1 
sat, and drew a long breath of content. At that 
moment in the doorway appeared the spare figure of 
my faithful Sophia, to present to me the other side 
of life. 

Sophia was about middle height, spare of flesh, and 
6 * 


106 


KEEPING A BIETHDAY. 


qiiicli of movement. Her complexion was dark, lier 
eyes of a dull black, but very penetrating. I always 
felt as if I had done something wrong when I met 
them, not that she always meant to be accusing me, but 
there was something in them that stirred an uncom- 
fortable sensation in my whole being, which I wrongly 
perhaps, attributed to the workings of conscience. She 
had an uncomfortable power over me, of which she was 
quite unconscious. Whether it were her stronger will, 
or some psychological influence that we have not yet 
got a name for, she could at any time, when my health 
was not at its best, make me do anything that she 
\ chose. And even when I was in my best estate, she 
could throw a blighting shadow over very happy hours. 
My face clouded as soon as I saw her standing in the 
door-way, and found her eyes flxed on me. 

Sophia was rather a good-looking woman. I often 
wondered whether, to other people, she was not quite 
pleasant to look at. The children loved her, and they 
would not certainly have loved her if she had not been 
pleasing to them. I fear it was with me an antagonism 
of temperament that put us both at our worst. Her 
black hair was slightly mixed with white, but she wore 
it neatly, and she was always dressed rather above her 
station, though with simplicity. Her forehead was low 
and her hair grew ofl from it in a cowlick, which pre- 
vented it from being parted in the middle. Her nos- 
trils were thin, and moved with every breath and every 
emotion ; indeed, they had much more active expression 
than her eyes. 

“Well, Sophia, what is it?’’ I said, for she stood 
without speaking. 

It was no matter, she had thought I was alone. 


KEEPma A BIRTHDAT. 


107 


“ Oh, Mr. Macnally will excuse us. Is anything 
wrong?” 

“ nothing but these,” she said, bringing forward 
two or three pairs of the children’s shoes, covered 
heavily with green and yellow mould. 

“ Oh ! why don’t you put them in the sun to dry. 
It was a pity to have shut them up.” 

‘‘ They have only been two days in the nursery 
closet. And it is about that that I came to speak to you. 
That room’s not fit for the children to sleep in. The 
paper’s peeling from the walls. I’ve taken up the carpet 
and hung it in the sun three times this summer, and yet 
it’s always cold when you tread on it. I never saw any- 
thing but a cellar that compared to that room for 
dampness.” 

“ It seems to agree with them particularly well how- 
ever, they’ve never been so well in all their lives before.” 

You’ll have to speak to Colonel Emlyn to have 
the chimney opened, if we stay here till the end of 
August. I wouldn’t undertake to bring baby through 
those damp August rains without afire to dress her by.” 

“ The poor colonel ! He has spent the rent twice over 
on the kitchen floor and the pump and the roof of the 
wing ; I shouldn’t have the face to ask him about the 
nursery chimney, Sophia.” 

“ As you please,” said Sophia, with nostrils flaring. 

“You can bring her into my room to sleep,” I said, 
“ and dress her there. It is always warm and comfor- 
table.” 

“ About these shoes. Are you going to have them 
half-soled ? If we stay here six weeks longer, they will 
just about last them through.; but something must be 
done ; you can’t get anything to fit them here.” 


108 


KEEPING A BIRTHDAY. 


“ Then can’t we send to town 

“For six weeks? — that wouldn’t be worth while.” 

She gave me a searching look. I felt the little shoes 
were only an excuse to fret me ; she knew much moro 
about the nursery properties than I, and never consult- 
ed me but for purposes of her own. 

“ I’ll take them to the shoemaker in the village to be 
mended,” I said, and took up my sewing. Mr. Macnally 
met my eyes as I looked up in a moment to assure 
myself that she was gone. They asked me a question 
so plainly, that I answered involuntarily. 

“ I can’t help it, I owe her everything ; and if I didn’t, 
I shouldn’t dare to say a word. What should I be, 
left without her? People must pay the penalty of be- 
ing inefficient.” 

“ You’re not going to let her take you away from 
here in six weeks ?” he said. 

“ Well, if she does, she may prepare to bury me, for 
if I go back to that horrible city and live the life 1 
have been living there I shall die. We won’t talk of it,” 
and I gave a sort of shudder. 

“ But the first of September ; it is such tyranny 
he repeated. 

“ I shall die ; that will be all,” I said. 

“We shall all have resort to the happy dispatch,” 
he said, getting up, and lifting his gun to go. “ Have 
you any idea,” he added, pausing as if irresolute, and, 
to occupy the irresolute moment, bending back the 
barrel of his gun and looking into it, “have you any 
idea how much you yield to this sort of pressure? 
I have often wondered.” 

“I suppose everybody thinks me weak,” I said^ 


KEEPING A BIRTHDAY, 


109 


biting my lips, and pushing the needle in and out of 
my work, aimlessly. 

“ I don’t know what everybody thinks ; and I don’t 
suppose you mind what I think.” 

“ Why shouldn’t I mind ? I don’t know so many 
people.” 

“ Well, in a very small world I suppose I might 
count for one,” he answered, with a compression of the 
lips, perhaps from the effort of snapping the gun back 
into its place, still standing half turned from me. 

“ Oh, you count for a great deal more than one, in 
my world. You would be lecturing me, if you knew 
how much more. You ought always to tell me what 
you think, if it isn’t too bad.” 

“ My thoughts always honor you,” he said, with a 
sudden strange sincerity, more startling from the con- 
trast to his ordinary gayety of manner. This time he 
turned quite away, and, stooping to pick up his cap 
which had fallen to the floor, he went towards the 
steps. We were on tlie sort of terms when goings and 
comings were not necessarily attended with much 
explanation. We should probably meet two or three 
times again to-day ; so while he went down the steps, I 
silently resumed my sewing, and pondered deeply on 
the few words that had escaped him, beginning with 
the question. Had I any idea how much I yielded to the 
influence of Sophia ? It was very unusual for him to 
say things like this. I could scarcely remember when 
he had said anything so personal before. He needn’t 
have told me all his thoughts honored me, for I knew 
it. He had put me on a very high pedestal, I felt. 
With all our intimate freedom of intercourse, there 
was always a silence about myself, that was a sort of 


110 


KEEPING A BIETHDAT. 


homage I vaguely liked. He could listen ; I was 
almost capriciously confidential sometimes, for he was a 
person who inspired you to talk about yourself ; but he 
did not respond ; he did not ask me questions, he did 
not lead me further by any words. I felt a great lik- 
ing for him, a great interest in him. He was cleverer 
than any one I had ever met before ; he was the gayest, 
brightest element that had ever come into my experi- 
ence. Delightful as the life was at Happy-go-lucky, 
it was impossible not to see that it was he who gave to 
it its greatest charm. In some ways of looking at him, 
he seemed the embodiment of youth ; in others, there 
was a man’s intensity and reticence. I sat with my eyes 
on my work, when Haomi called up to me : 

“ Aunt Penelope said you were to come to tea to- 
night. Did Mr. Macnally tell you ?” 

“No. Why to-night especially ?” 

“ Somebody is coming up from town, who, I can’t 
remember. Mr. Macnally, what’s the name of the 
company that’s coming up to-night ?” 

But Mr. Macnally and Ned were already off, out of 
hearing. It was Saturday, and Ned was very jealous 
of infringements of his holiday. His tutor had a sort 
of conscientiousness about him that one could not help 
respecting. He probably hated to go tramping off in tlie 
surfi ; but the care of the boy never seemed out of his 
mind. 

“ I’m paid for it,” he said once, when I reproached 
him with leaving us. He had not been bitter about it, 
rather jolly, looking back and saying from over his 
gun: 

‘‘ My own convenience counts as nil: 

It is ray duty, and I will.” 


CHAPTEE X. 


EN GEANDE TENUE. 

“For innocence hath a privilege in her 
To dignify arch jests and laughing eyes.” 

As You Like it, 

S OPHIA’S unhappy jealousy of the other house did 
not prevent her desiring me to appear my best 
when I went there, and though she often looked as if 
she were capable of powdering the peaches with arse- 
nic, she was always careful that everything should be in 
the best order, when they came to us. I have known 
her to work a whole day to prepare a good tea for 
them, when it seemed as if she hated every member of 
the family with bitterness enough to kill them. That 
afternoon, therefore, it did not surprise me to find that, 
having overheard the invitation Haomi gave me from 
her aunt, she had spent an hour pressing out a pretty 
white muslin dress that had been in a trunk all summer, 
and which was the work of her own hands in the early 
spring, when we had first talked of coming to the coun- 
try. She had wonderful skill in such matters, and 
could reduce a fashion-plate to fact unerringly. The 
afternoon was so unusually warm that I had slept, and 
was just arousing myself to the necessity of getting 
ready to go, when she entered the door with the dress 
on her arm. 

“ Should I better wear that I said. 


fill] 


112 


EK GRANDE TENTJE. 


“ I don’t know why not,” she said, putting it on the 
bed. “ It’s the only warm day we’ve had, and we 
mayn’t have another. Goodness knows, if I’d thought 
we were coming to such a place as this, I shouldn’t have 
spent a week’s work on your dress.” 

‘‘ It’s sweet,” I said, touching the flounces affection- 
ately. “ Come in by and by and fasten it on for me, 
won’t you? I can’t manage that handkerchief alone.” 

When my hair was dressed and I was ready for her, 
she made some excuse and came back into the room, 
and lifted the dress over my head and fastened it on for 
me. It was picturesque and pretty, though very sim- 
ple, made with a short round skirt, with ruffles at the 
bottom, a round waist, sleeves to the elbows, with ruf- 
fles, and a handkerchief of the same material folded 
across the bosom. I was slender and tall enough to 
make it becoming ; it was so long since I had seen my- 
self in anything that was, that I flushed with pleasure 
as I stepped back, and saw the whole effect. Then I 
glanced guiltily at Sophia to see if she had seen the 
flush, but she hadn’t ; she was looking with an expres- 
sion almost of satisfaction at the details of the dress. 
Then she went away, and brought me a pair of slippers 
from the trunk. 

‘‘ They’ll be dusty by the time I get there,” I said 
insincerely ; it really gave me pleasm’e to think of put- 
ting them on. 

“You can see yourself what a flgure you’d make, 
with walking boots, in that short dress. Be careful and 
walk in the path, that’s all that’s necessary.” 

Then she raised her eyes, and began to criticise the 
part that was not the work of her own hands. “ You’ve 
got your hair too high,” she said, and with both hands, 


EN GRANDE TENTJE. 


113 


not Tiiigently, she pressed down the light-bro’svn mass, 
till the contour satisfied her correct eye. 

“You’re the only woman,” she said involuntarily as 
she looked at me, “ that I ever saw that could spend 
twelve hours out of the twenty-four in the hottest sun that 
blazes, and not have your skin the worse for it. Your 
throat’s just as white as your shoulders, and j^our face 
isn’t a shade darker than it was when you went to 
school. Baby’s going to have a skin just like yours.” 

“ And poor Maidy’s always scorching up ; her very 
eyelids burn.” 

“ That’s like her father ; she’s got his light-blue eyes, 
and that same sort of hair — but Baby’s eyes are grayish- 
blue, like yours, and her lashes are long and dark, like 
yours. She’ll be the prettiest, if she’s spared.” 

Sophia was always conscientious about that clause : 
she ended every allusion to the children’s near or dis- 
tant future with a proviso about their being spared, as 
if some hideous gardener were cultivating the eal-th, 
with a prejudice against children, whom he weeded out 
with a liberal hand, and as if it were only an oversight 
when one here or there was “ spared.” 

She went again to the trunk, and came back with a 
parasol. “ You’d better use that thing up,” she said, 
“it’s getting yellow.” 

I had forgotten its existence ; it was a piece of my 
wedding finery, a broad, pongee parasol, with a deep 
ecru lace around it. 

“ What care you take of things,” I exclaimed. I 
should never have thought of it again. Ah, Sophia, 
'what should I do without you ? ” And the tears swam 
in my eyes. 

“ Much you care,” she muttered, going out of the 


114 


EN GRANDE TENUE. 


door. “ As long as things come ready to your hand, 
it’s little odds who slaves for you.” 

Probably the sight of me again in girlish dress, 
and perhaps the words I had just said, had upset her, 
and she took refuge in her habitual rudeness, but I was 
too hurt to think so then. 

The afternoon sun was low in the west ‘when 1 
started for Happy-go-lucky, with the broad white para- 
sol over my head, and a light chip hat in my hand. I 
had broken off a bunch of a yellowish pink geranium that 
grew in one of the garden-beds, and fastened it where 
the handkerchief crossed on my bosom. There had 
been a rain the night before ; it was not dusty ; the 
heat of the day was over, but the air was still soft and 
warm, and the wind had fallen. It was a delightful walk. 

When I came up the steps at Happy-go-lucky I 
heard voices on the south piazza, and going around the 
corner of the house, I found the whole party assembled. 
The heat of the day had probably been the cause of 
their being at home, and the coolness of the porch 
facing the ocean had drawn them together. Mrs. 
Emlyn was sitting with a stocking bag on her lap, and 
a heap of dictionaries on a chair beside her, in whose 
company she had evidently spent the afternoon. 
Haomi was swinging in a hammock, with a story-book 
in her hand. Hed was cleaning his gun at a distance 
of two or three feet. Mr. Macnally was sitting on the 
step, leaning his head against a post. The colonel and 
a stranger were seated with their backs to me, looking 
out over the tranquil, pale sea. The wind came faint 
and soft from the ocean, the waves broke on the beach 
with scarcely any’ sound. Hedwas the first to discover 
me as I approached them. 


EN GRANDE TENUE. 


115 


I say I” lie cried, jumping up, “ I’m going up- 
Etairs to dress myself this minute/’ 

“ Oh, how sweet you look,” cried Haomi, rolling out 
of her hammock, her rough flannel dress much dis- 
ordered from the long afternoon’s nap there, and her 
hair tumbled over her eyes. This called every one’s 
attention to me. I hadn’t put my parasol down, but 
held it back over my shoulder, and stood in a kind of 
stage fright at finding myself the center of so many 
eyes. 

‘‘ There she goes, 

Pretty as a rose, 

All dressed up in her Sunday clothes,” 


roared Hed. 

“ Ned !” called out his uncle, reprovingly, seeing my 
embarrassment. All the three gentlemen were on their 
feet. The glasses were on Mrs. Emlyn’s nose. 

‘‘ Why not ?” cried Ned, stoutly ; “ she looks 
awfully pretty, and I’ve never seen her dressed up 
before. I couldn’t help it, you know ; I just couldn’t.” 

“ You’re a rude boy,” said his aunt, decisively. 
“I’m not at all proud of your manners. Take that 
dirty gun away, and go and get ready for your tea.” 

Ned rather sulkily gathered up his blackened rags 
and rods and boxes and went away, leaving me in a 
worse state of agitation than before. 

“Don’t scold Ned,” I said, confusedly. 

“No, on my honor,” said the colonel, “I think his 
aunt was too hard on him. I don’t find it in my heart 
to blame him and he bowed significantly. 

“ I shall go away,” I said, between laughing ana 
crying. 


116 


EN GRANDE TENUE. 


“ I should think you would,” cried Mrs. Emlyn, “ as 
from a company of savages. If this aberration of good 
breeding occurred very often, I should go myself.” 

But,” urged Haomi, pressing close upon me, and 
fondling the ruffles on my sleeve, and gazing at my 
slippers, “ but what did you do it for ? Why did you 
put your good clothes on to-day ?” 

I was driven into a corner ; I was desperate ; I 
didn’t know what I did. 

‘‘You told me there was company,” and with an 
impulse half shy, half defiant, I lifted my eyes to the 
group standing before me. A woman is rarely mis- 
taken when she commands admiration ; perhaps my 
courage rose and a faint fiutter of coquetry inspired 
me as I met, one after another, the eyes fixed upon me. 
First the colonel’s, kindly and mirthful, then the 
strange blue eyes of a strange man, then the deep, keen 
gaze of Mr. Macnally, who stood behind the others. 

“ Ah, my dear sir, you are the excuse, we owe it to 
you. Allow me, madame, to present to you the Com- 
pany,” said the colonel, with great enjoyment of his 
own observations. 

The stranger bowed. Mrs. Emlyn, who did not un- 
derstand coquetry, and imagined me more unhappy 
than I was, said, “ I think we have been quite rude 
enough, all of us, and I propose to let our visitor have 
a seat now, and to talk of something besides the 
way she’s dressed. It is so warm, you did well to put 
on something thinner,” she added, as I sat down beside 
her. Thereupon they all laughed, and the colonel 
said, 

“ Why don’t you begin, my dear ?” 

This did not please her, and she simply frowned. 


EN GRAin)E TENTJE. 


117 


Tlie stranger did not sit down, but stood before me a 
few feet, leaning against one of the pillars that sup- 
ported the piazza roof. He was a tall man, rather im- 
posing in figure and carriage. He was probably be- 
tween forty-five and fifty. His features were good ; he 
had undoubtedly been remarkably handsome when he 
was younger, and still would be noticed for good looks. 
His blue eyes had a slow way of fastening themselves 
on your face, and then not being easily shaken off. The 
expression of them was not entirely pleasing. A heavy 
mustache covered his mouth, which might have been 
bad or good. His hair, which was thin on the top, 
was brown where it was not gray. His clothes were 
perfect, a great contrast to the old-fashioned trimness 
of the colonel’s, and the rough carelessness of the 
tutor’s. His hands and feet were de la haute noblesse 'y 
he threw the whole party into an inferior position. He 
had evidently been a man of the world from his youth ; 
no easier and better manners could be imagined. One 
felt he always had 


“ Sipped wine from silver, praising God, 

And raked in golden barley,” 

wine that had “grown fat on Lusitanian summers.” 
Happy Mr. Boughton ! 

Mrs. Emlyn turned to me and began to ask ques- 
tions about the children; why had I not let Maidy 
come? 

“ It’s to be feared Maidy had no clothes fine enough 
to accompany her mamma to-night,” said Mr. Macnally. 
The visitor transferred his eyes slowly from me to the 
speaker ; I wondered what he thought of him, from his 


118 


EN GEANDE TENTJE. 


faded flannel shirt, and dusty knickerbockers, to the 
easy audacity of his manners, and the keenness of nis 
dark eyes. 

“ I thought we had agreed to give up the subject of 
clothes,” said Mrs. Emlyn. 

“ I didn’t promise.” 

‘‘Well, it’s time you did. I won’t have another 
word of them. It’s a pity,” she continued, “that a 
woman can’t put on a pretty gown once in a summer, 
without being frightened back into flannel, before she’g 
had it on an hour. For my part, I never want to 
see blue flannel again. We’ve had a surfeit of it. I’m 
glad to see you in anything so fresh and pretty.” 

We all laughed, no one more heartily than Mrs. 
Emlyn herself. 

“ There’s a charm about you and your clothes, my 
dear. We all revolve around you and can’t break 
away.” 

“ I’m going up-stairs to dress,” said IS’aomi, getting 
behind her aunt’s chair, and asking in a low voice for 
permission to put on a white dress. 

“ The contagion of folly,” said the tutor, shaking 
his head, and balancing himself on the rail of the 
veranda. 

“ You don’t seem to have caught it, Macnally,” said 
the Colonel. 

“I’ve had it,” he said ; “you can’t take it twice. 
Sometimes, however,” he added, his eyes falling on and 
glancing ofl the polished boots of the stranger, “it 
takes a chronic form, though weakened, and you never 
get over it. Doctors call it cachexy, don’t they ? It’s 
pretty serious then.” 

For the first time since I had known him I 


EN GRANDE TENTJE. 


119 


found myself annoyed by what he did ; I wished he 
would get down off the rail, and stop talking utter 
nonsense. It made me angry to see the deliberate blue 
eyes of the new-comer measuring him. I wanted to 
have him thought well of, and I felt sure he was not. 
This was the first time that any stranger had come in 
among us in our free and unconventional life. I had, 
perhaps, not realized how great a part of our enjoyment 
had come from the fact that we were all W accord ; that 
we all sincerely liked each other. I was too sensitive 
not to feel the jar of this new presence. He dislocated 
everything. Ho one of us stood as we had stood 
before. I lost my bearings, and began to criticise every- 
thing. I began to make apologies in my own mind 
for what before had seemed to need no apology. I 
wished for an opportunity to explain what had only 
just seemed to call for explanation. I don’t know 
whether a similar distortion had taken place in the 
minds of the others ; but it seemed to me they were all 
caricaturing themselves. The colonel was more prosy 
and old-fogy than ever before, Mrs. Emlyn more un- 
necessarily candid and sharply plain-spoken, and Mr. 
Macnally outdid himself in perverse disregard of all 
conventionalities. What nonsense he talked, and what 
applause he won from his host and hostess ! Last night 
I should have laughed, too, and that hour after sunset, 
looking over the slowly-darkening sea, would have 
been delicious to me. But to-night all was out of 
tune. 

Tea was late ; it was almost dark when we were 
summoned to it, and the candles were already lighted. 
Ned and Naomi came down promptly ; Ned had actu- 
ally put on his Sunday clothes, and Naomi looked love- 


}-20 


EN QRAia)E TENUE. 


ly in her best white dress, and a bright ribbon in hei 
hair. 

‘‘Where will it end?” cried Mr. Macnally. “It is 
the dawn of the reformation.” 

“Yon are the only one not affected by the move- 
ment, Macnally,” said the colonel. 

“ I am sorry,” said Mr. Macnally, bringing rather 
prominently forward a sunburned hand and a flannel 
sleeve, in some unnecessary act of civility at the table, 
“I am sorry to be a memento mori — showing you 
what you were yesterday and what you’ll without doubt 
be to-morrow.” 

But Mr. Boughton, the visitor, was seated by me, 
and I was quite willing to take his attention from all 
this, and he talked to me when he could make me hear 
above the voices of Ned and Naomi and the rest. 
When we went out from the tea, of which I don’t re- 
member much, except his unwavering blue eyes on 
my face, and his persistent low voice in my ear, I was 
for a moment alone by the parlor lamp. The gentle- 
men had gone out on the piazza to smoke, Ned was 
busy with his dogs, whom he was feeding at the door, 
Naomi was carrying something to the store-room with 
her aunt ; I stood alone at the parlor table, with a little 
contraction of trouble on my face — which I supjiose 
the light beside me brought out pretty clearly. Mr. 

^ Macnally came in from the piazza and came up to me, 
without the audacity and merriment of ten minutes be- 
fore. 

“lam afraid,” he said in an eager, appealing sort of 
way, “I’m afraid sometliing has happened to annoy 
you. I’m — I’m awfully sorry if I’ve had anything tc 


EN GEAKDE TENUE. 


121 


do with it but you know I didn’t mean to, I needn’t 
tell you that.” 

I was silent — what was there to say ? 

“Was it about that stupid dress?” he said, not look- 
ing at me. “ I ought to have seen ; but I own I didn’t 
think you’d mind.” 

“ It isn’t very pleasant to be made so absurd before 
a stranger,” I said, with a taint of insincerity which was 
half unconscious. 

“ I’m sure you’re right,” he answered, “ and I can’t 
tell you how ashamed I am. But he seemed so tire- 
some, such an old muff, with his shiny boots and his 
slow ways, I really didn’t feel as if he were in the way 
of our talking just as we always do.” 

This vexed me ; I don’t at all know why ; but I 
said, “ One sometimes gets tired of — buffoonery — all the 
time — ” 

“ I’m sorry,” he said, faintly. I looked up hastily 
into his face. He had flushed painfully, and now the 
color was going back, and the expression was as if he 
had been wounded physically. I was ashamed before I 
had actually said it, and now I was frightened. What 
had I done ? It is no light thing to call your friend’s 
raillery and wit, buffoonery. Men don’t ordinarily say 
tliat sort of thing to each other with impunity ; and 
from a woman, how much harder to bear. And a wo- 
man, too, who had been treated with such unvarying 
liomage and delicacy. I had heard the children say 
that his quick Irish temper kept them in awe of him in 
school-time, and I could well imagine that such eyes as 
his could sometimes burn with sudden anger. But he 
was not angry now ; it was something a great deal worse. 


122 


EN GRANDE TENTJE. 


He was very pale, and lie turned away with the instinct 
of hiding his emotion. 

I am very sorry,’’ he repeated, but in a low and 
uncertain voice. “ I have not had any idea that that sort 
of thing offended you. I — I have been altogether mis- 
taken in — in — ” 

I tried to say something to extenuate my rudeness, 
but at the moment that I began to speak, Mrs. Emlyn 
and Naomi came into the room, and Mr. Macnally 
left it. 

“What is the matter with Mr. Macnally?” she said. 
“ Is he ill ? He looks pale,” and she followed him to 
the door and called after him, but got no answer. 

The few days that followed this are too uncomfort- 
able to recall. I was not given to self-analysis in those 
days, or I might have found that my unhappiness meant 
more than I should have liked to admit. I thought I 
was only uncomfortable from self-reproach. I was so 
absorbed in my own feelings that I think I must have 
made a sorry companion in the walks and drives to 
which I was doomed by my landlord and landlady, 
who seemed more than ever intent on having me with 
them. The tutor had in some way fallen out of our 
programmes and Mr. Boughton had taken his place. 
We hardly saw him save at the table, and then he was 
so silent as to be forever jeered at by the colonel and 
by Ned. 

There was sailing, driving, walking, for the enter- 
tainment of the guest ; I remember little about it, but 
that he was always by me, and that if he had patience 
with my abstraction and dullness, he must have been a 
good-natured man. I had just one fixed idea, and that 
was, to get a chance to make my peace with Mr. Mac- 


EN GRAITDE TENTJE. 


123 


nally, whose pale face and averted eyes haunted me 
continually. But the chance was not easy to get. He 
was not always at meals, and he kept far out of my path 
at other times. I was frightened, too, when I did see 
him, and it was almost impossible for me to look at him 
or address him. 

The table was dull : we all languished. Mrs. Emlyn 
sometimes yawned, and wondered if it were the weather 
made her feel so stupid. The colonel roused himself 
to talk, an'd didn’t mend matters. He was not a con- 
versationalist. Hed and Haomi sparred a little, but even 
they seemed to have lost their zest. Mr. Boughton had 
the floor a good deal of the time. He talked well, I 
suppose. He had a nice voice. He had been everywhere. 
He told little incidents very charmingly. (I don’t mean 
anecdotes. Heaven forbid !) It was very pleasant to him 
to be listened to, and we all listened pretty well. But 
somehow it was not very vivacious, and in the midst of 
it Mrs. Emlyn would yawn, or Hed would interrupt, or 
the colonel think of something about the water-works 
that needed his personal attention. 

The light had been put out, and I had put it out, 
and I felt sore about it all the time. What would I give 
for five minutes to beg his pardon in ? I begged it all 
night long, when I lay restlessly awake, and all day 
long, while Mr. Boughton talked melodiously to me, 
and I didn’t listen. 

At last the day came when I got my five minutes. 
We had beenofi on a long drive, the host and hostess, 
Haomi and Maidy, the guest and myself, in the three- 
seated open wagon. It was a bright day, and we had 
stayed much longer than had been planned. 

When we came back it was an hour and a half after 


124 : 


EN GEANDE TENUE. 


dinner-time, but it did not seem to disturb our entertain- 
ers very much. There was only one thing that troubled 
me about it, and that was that JS’ed and his tutor would 
probably have taken dinner by themselves, after the 
manner of that free-and-easy household, and gone 
away with their guns. When we drove up to the 
house we saw, through the dining-rooin windows, two 
blue flannel backs bending over the table, and a servant 
languidly bringing in dessert. Only hied turned his 
head to see us as we passed the window. Mr. Bough- 
ton carried my shawls into the parlor, and left me, 
called by the colonel to some irrigation consultation. 
Naomi went with her aunt to get out the dessert. I 
called Maidy, and sent her into the dining-room to say 
to Mr. Macnally that I wanted to speak to him for a 
moment in the parlor, when he should have finished 
his dinner. I heard her little baby voice deliver the 
message, and then I sat down with a very agitated feel- 
ing and waited for him to come to me. 

I heard Ned push back his chair, and invite Maidy 
to come with him to feed his dogs, and remind Mr. 
Macnally that in ten minutes they ought to be away. 
It seemed to me a good while after they had started 
down the steps that I heard him get up, and come tow- 
ards the door of the parlor. It was probably my own 
impatience that made it seem so long ; now that he was 
coming, what, after all, did I mean to say to him ? Now 
that he was standing before me, I hardly had composure 
enough to look at him. I was sitting on a sofa by the 
window and had been pretending to read ; I pushed my 
book away, and asked him to sit down, that I liad 
something to say to him. He sat down, not on the 


EN GRANDE TENUE. 


125 


Bofa, but on a chair exactly by it, and waited for me to 
speak. But it seemed simply impossible for me to 
speak. I bit my lip and tried to command my voice, 
bnt it would not come. 

“ I’m afraid,” he said at last, rather low, “ that it 
troubles you to say what you want to ; and I hope 
you won’t bother about it, if you do it simply for 
me.” 

“ hTo,” ! said, gathering voice, ‘‘ it’s for myself more 
than for you. It didn’t hurt you, perhaps, that I was 
BO rude the other night, and said such an unpardon- 
able thing, but it has hurt me and made me really 
wretched.” 

“ That’s foolish,” he said, with a trace of his eager 
manner. “ I hope you’ll put it out of your mind and 
never think of it again.” 

“ Will you I said, looking at him. 

“ Yes, as much as I ought,” he answered, with a 
faint smile, looking away. 

“ That’s it ; you’ll remember it and be influenced by 
it, and keep it between us, and yet forgive me. I’m 
quite sure you forgive me ; I’ve been sure of that. If 
you only had been angry. Why wouldn’t you be 
angry ? It would have been a blessing.” 

“ You ask impossibilities.” 

“ And I suppose it’s just as great an impossibility 
for you to forget ?” 

“ Oh, no ; believe me I could forget it, if — if you 
really meant me to.” 

‘‘Well, I do mean you to. I do ask you to forget 
I ever said what wasn’t my thought, what was totally 
against my feeling, what was utterly untrue. It was 
just the result of a foolish discord in my feelings, — I can- 


126 


EN GRANDE TENUE. 


not understand it. I was all out of tune and peevish, 
I — I — wish I hadn’t said it.” 

“ Why ?” he asked, eagerly. “ Because you think 
it — troubled me ?” 

‘‘Yes; and because I think it will make you 
different ; that we sha’n’t have the same happy times 
again, and that you’ll never feel the same towards me.” 

“ Oh !” he said, and a deep flush passed over his 
whole face; “you are talking about impossibilities 
again.” 

“If it only might be an impossibility! You’ve 
always been so nice. Don’t think I haven’t appreciated 
it. I can’t suppose you will ever be able to have ex- 
actly the same respect for a person who could do such 
a wantonly rude thing ; but you’ll try and lihe me just 
the same, won’t you ?” 

“ I’m afraid I shouldn’t have to try,” he said, with 
something between a smile and a setting of his teeth 
together, as if he wished I’d stop. 

“ It would be all the better if you didn’t have to 
try,” I answered, not understanding him, and rejoicing 
only in my own lightened heart. 

Ned’s tramp was heard across the north piazza, and 
he gave a nervous start and rose. 

“ Thank you,” he said, hurriedly, glancing towards 
the door by which that young barbarian might be ex- 
pected to come in ; “ thank you for what you’ve said to 
me.” 

“ I hope I’ll never have to say it to you again, that’s 
aU.” 

“ I can’t say I hope it. Kill me again to-night, if 
you will bring me to life to-morrow, as you have done 
to-day.”, 


EN GRAJSTDE TENUE. 


127 


He had turned to go out of the piazza window to 
get his gun, which stood there ; he leaned towards me 
as he passed me, and said it too low for Ned to hear, 
who was already on the threshold looking in. 


CHAPTER XI. 


CATECHETICAL. 

“I seek no copy now of life’s first half 1 
Leave here the pages with long musings curled, 

And write me new my future’s epigraph.” 

E. B. Browning, 

T he next afternoon I had the pleasure of a long 
conversation with Mr. Boughton on the piazza. 
It was not an unalloyed pleasure, as I knew Macnally 
and the children had gone down along the beach to 
look at something which with much philanthropy they 
hoped might prove a wreck. I had not the courage to 
go oil and join them, leaving Mrs. Emlyn alone with 
the visitor. After they were quite beyond recall, Mrs. 
Emlyn got up and went in the house and didn’t come 
out again. It was a great nuisance. She would never 
know the sacrifice that I had made; why had I not 
gone ? However, I made the best of it, and was as po- 
lite and patient as I knew how to be. 

I knew that Mr. Boughton was a very recent wid- 
ower. I knew that he was very rich. These were the 
two points of his personal history that I possessed. 
They were not, unhappily, points that could be made 
use of to furnish conversation. I could not ask him 
anything about the late Mrs. Boughton. I could not 
ask him how it felt to have as much money as he 
wanted. On this last head I felt much curiosity, but 
[ 128 ] 


CATECHETICAL. 


129 


naturally I couldn’t even distantly allude to it. It is a 
singular restriction of good manners, that we can’t ask 
each other what our income is. It’s a subject of such 
universal interest ; a toucli of income makes the whole 
world kin. It did really seem hard that I couldn’t talk 
to him of the only thing about him that was interest- 
ing. I wanted to ask him how it felt to know that if 
he wanted anything, from a house to a story-book, he 
could have it by saying so, and taking out the money. 
I wanted to know if it made him stop wanting things 
to know he could have them, /wanted so many things. 
I was always rushing forward making plans, and then 
coming crash up against the dead wall of insolvency. 
Fancy having a road clear before you as far as you can 
see, and no limit to the making and carrying out of 
plans, but the desire to make them and to carry them 
out. It would have been very entertaining to have had 
his experiences about it, but, alas, it was impossible. He 
seemed equally anxious to get at some of my experi- 
ences. His conversation took a vaguely, politely per- 
sonal tmm. It’s sometimes quite fascinating to have the 
conversation take a personal turn, if it’s vague and po- 
lite enough. Mr. Boughton understood how to do it 
very well, but somehow I did not feel inclined to tell 
liim much about myself, vague and polite as he was. 

The afternoon wasn’t quite as bad as I anticipated, 
and wore away much quicker. When we saw the 
wrecking party coming back along the beach, we walked 
down to meet them. 

“I have a great curiosity,” said my companion, 
slowly, ‘‘ to know what your impression is of that young 
fellow, whom the Emlyns treat with such familiarity. 
They are so unconventional and so benevolent, one 

a* 


130 


CATECHETICAL. 


doesn’t expect them to be discriminating- too. But for 
you — how does he strike you ?” 

“ I’m afraid I’m unconventional as well as they, and 
perhaps benevolent !” 

“ Not undiscriminatingly benevolent in this case, let 
me hope.” And he fastened his slow blue eyes on my 
face. 

‘‘ I must say, I like him immensely, — even on the 
top of a flagstaff.” 

For Macnally was at that moment plain in view, 
going like a cat up the pole before the Coast Guard 
house, with Ned after him, who necessarily, having only 
ordinary legs and arms, was very much behind. 

“ He’s agile, I admit.” 

“ Is that all you admit ?” I said, my eyes following 
the now descending flgure. 

“ He has a glib tongue and much audacity. I’m 
not settled as to what I think his walk in life has been. 
Perhaps he has enlightened you. The colonel doesn’t 
seem to have much knowledge of his past.” 

“Well, I’m sorry that I haven’t either. I only 
know we all like him so much as to forget whether he 
has had any past or not. All ! He’s got down safely. 
But poor Ned has got a tumble !” 

Naomi by this time came tearing up to us, looking 
like a tomboy. I couldn’t help thinking what a trial 
we must be to Mr. Boughton, one and all of us. After 
tea, the colonel took Mr. Boughton away to smoke, and 
Mrs. Einlyn went out for her usual walk 6n the piazza. 
The rest of us closed in around the parlor lamp ; it was 
on a wide, bare table, of which the mahogany shone. 
Naomi settled down to her drawing ; I sat with my 
embroidery on my lap, my work-basket on the table. 


CATECHETICAL. 


131 


Mr. Macnallj sat just beyond me, pulling out tlie gay- 
colored worsteds and making patterns with them on the 
mahogany. Ned had his back to us, reading intently a 
Waveiiey novel, and not looking up even when he was 
spoken to, which wasn’t often. A happy sort of quiet 
had settled on us, which was broken by Naomi say- 
ing, 

“ How much nicer it is since you came here to live 
in the cottage ! I think it is just as if you lived here 
at this house, and had the cottage too. Mr. Macnally, 
don’t you think we have a great deal nicer times since 
the middle of June ?” 

“ Since the middle of June ? Why, wasn’t it before 
that that we had our great haul of blue-hsh ? I don’t 
think I’ve had a bite since then. And as to the snipe, 
the little beggars haven’t looked at us for a month 
or more. We had prime luck when we first came 
down.” 

“ Oh, nonsense. I don’t mean that. I mean at 
home here, all the time, and going to drive and all 
that. It mayn’t make any difference to you and Ned, 
but I know Aunt Penelope and I like having her,” 
and she leaned over from her chair and gave me a lit- 
tle kiss. 

“ Thank you, Naomi, dear ; and I like being with 
yoii.” 

‘‘ Who do you come to see here ?” she said. ‘‘ Aunt 
Penelope is so much older, and I am so much younger ; 
I wish you came to see me. As to the others, they’re 
as bad. Only Mr. Macnally. He is near your age. 
ArenH you, Mr. Macnally ? Tell me truly, are you older 
than she is, or younger ? No, you couldmH be younger.” 

‘‘ Not if I tried !” 


132 


CATEOHETIOAL. 


‘•Bat, do you really think you are his age? Yon 
don’t come to see him, anyway.” 

“ I never thought of it before, Naomi. It is rather 
embarrassing. I actually don’t know whom I come to 
see.” 

“I know,” said Ned, tipping back in his chair and 
looking over his shoulder at us. “ I know, and I’ll ■ 
tell you something if you’ll all promise not to tell.” 

“ I pledge myself for one,” I said. 

“ Well, now, honest, though — Mr. Macnally, and Na- 
omi, you. I heard something this evening, just before 
tea, while I was asleep in the hammock — Mr. Boughton 
and uncle were sitting there talking, and I couldn’t 
help hearing ; they ought to have looked out if they 
hadn’t meant me to Irear ’em.” 

The boy’s face shone with mirth, and he twisted 
himself around on his chair and put his elbows on the 
table. “ The first I heard was uncle saying, ‘ She is a 
charming young creature, all tenderness and sweetness,’ 
or some such stuff as that ; and then old Boughton said 
in a spoony sort of way, ‘ She’s perfectly unconscious of 
her beauty ; she’s the only woman that I ever saw* that 
was.’ Then uncle said she had always lived in a very 
quiet sort of way, but, that generally women found out 
they were good-looking if they lived in the backwoods. 
Then the old fellow knocked the ashes off his cicrar, 
and said (oh, if you could have heard him ! with a sort 
of swell) : ‘ Col. Emlyn, she would adorn any station.’ ” 

The boy doubled himself up with laughter. 

“ What were they talking of ? What is the fun of 
it ?” I said, bewildered. 

“ Oh, yen don’t see ? Good for you. Adorning 
any station. I suppose the old cad thinks his station is 


CATECHETICAL. 


133 


tlio tip-toppest one to let just about now. I wonder if 
there is a woman alive that would be fool enough to 
take him 

“ Plenty I said, sagaciously. “ He isn’t so very 
old ; he’s very handsome, or he has been, anyway. And 
his manners are so gentlemanly and quiet. A woman 
might do worse. Master Hed. I wish you may have as 
good a chance as he, when you are forty- live.” 

“ Whew,” said Hed, “ I begin to be afraid to tell 
my joke.” 

I don’t see any joke so far,” said Haomi. 

“ Hobody expected you to,” said Hed, casting a con- 
temptuous glance at her over his shoulder. Then he 
turned to us, and went on sotto voce, with glances at 
the window to see if any one were coming in : He’s 
in earnest, he’s awfully in earnest, and it’s coming very 
soon, I shouldn’t wonder. But no matter. I couldn’t be 
quite positive about when he’s going to speak. He was 
asking all particulars of uncle. He wanted to know 
how old, about, she was, how long her husband 
had been dead — whether there were any relations that 
would be any way objectionable — whether there was a 
possibility of any other attachment being in his way — ” 
Hed,” said the tutor in a voice that made him 
start, though it wasn’t any louder than his own ; “it’s bad 
enough to listen, but to repeat what you have heaid’s 
a little too bad for even schoolboy morals.” 

Hed flashed, and looked both angry and sulky, 

“ You didn’t seem to mind at first,” he said, with a 
sharp look at his tutor’s face. 

“ I wasn’t paying much attention when you first 
began,” he returned, meeting his eye with a glance that 
sent it down. 


134 


CATECHETICAL. 


‘‘ I know !” cried Naomi, dropping her pencils, and 
leaning forward with excited eyes. ‘‘ He means you ! 
Tell me, does he mean you ? Did you know he — he — 
felt that way ? Tell me, did you know it V'^ 

Naomi had never been as near as this to any matter 
of the heart before ; she felt awed, one might say, b}'’ 
the proximity of a proposal, even though it came from 
a man of forty-five or over. Her sentimental ideas of 
love were suffering a little distraint from the recollec- 
tion of the scantiness of Mr. Boughton’s hair, and the 
fact that he had been married before, but nevertheless 
it was the most thrilling moment of her life. She 
pushed back her drawing things, and slid down on her 
knees beside me, and put her hand upon my shoulder. 

“ Do you mind it,” she said, in a low voice, “ that 
he has been mamed before V 

I had grown red and white a great many times since 
this revelation, and was bending over my work, trying 
to steady myself to speak when I should be called upon. 
I hadn’t attained any great composure of voice and 
manner when I was obhged to answer Naomi’s very 
searching question. 

‘‘ If I had anything to do with the matter,” I said, 
“ I should mind it. But I haven’t.” 

“ But he meant you,” cried Naomi ; “Ned says he 
did. Don’t people generally know when — when — 
other people are going to ask them — for their hand ?” 

Naomi had read Miss Austen and the Waverleys, 
and felt she was correct in her phraseology, though it 
didn’t sound quite right when used in the light of 
common day. Ned snickered, and Naomi blushed 
scarlet, but even her mortification could not withdraw 
her thoughts from the fascinating subject. 


CATECHETICAL. 


135 


“ I should think,” she said, softly, “ that you would 
have known.” 

I should not be likely to think of what would be 
an insult to me.” 

“An insult! Why, I thought people thought it 
was a very high compliment — an honor. I don’t see 
how it could be anything else. Do you mean,” she 
went on, after a moment’s pause, “do you mean be- 
cause you — had — been — been married before ?” 

I signified an assent in some way. 

“ Tell me just this one thing,” she said, earnestly ; 
“ do you think it isn’t nice for people to get married 
again ?” 

“I am sure I don’t think it is nice, Naomi. I wish 
you wouldn’t talk to me any more about it.” 

“Just this one thing; just answer me this one 
question and I won’t bother you any more,” and 
Naomi’s eyes filled with a strange intentness. “Would 
you ever get married again? Would anything induce 
you ?” 

“ No, Naomi, I would not ; nothing would induce 
me.” 

“ I am so glad,” cried the child, clasping her hands 
around her knee, and gazing up into my face. “I 
didn’t think you would. I don’t see how any one 
can do it ; any one, at least, that has really been 
loved.” 

The woman’s heart was stirring in the bosom of 
thirteen. It was not Miss Austen and the Waverleys 
this time. 

“ Tell me one thing more — ” 

“ No, Naomi, not one thing more. You promised 
r^e,” I said, very low. 


136 


CATECHETICAL. 


ITed had gone back to his book, but he was not 
reading ^'ery much. His eye furtively studied all the 
faces in turn around the table. I don’t think he got 
much out of Mr. Macnally’s, who made and remade the 
worsteds into patterns on the table, and never once 
lifted his head. I was struggling so hard to command 
myself that I suppose I looked unnatural. I heard a 
moving back of chairs upon the piazza, where the colonel 
and his guest were smoking, and then my plans for 
escape took sudden shape. In a moment more they 
would be in the room, and Mrs. Emlyn too. ' And then 
the going home ; it was possible the colonel would lend 
himself to some plan for giving his guest an opportu- 
nity for seeing me alone, perliaps this very evening. I 
pushed my work into my basket rapidly and got up. 

“ I’m going home,” I said, as quietly as I could. 

Say good-night to your aunt, Haomi.” 

Aren’t you going out on the piazza to speak to her ? 
Won’t she think it’s queer ?” 

‘‘ I don’t want to call her in ; I must go. Tell her 
Sophia was going to the village, and I had to go to stay 
with the children. Good-night.” 

And I hurried into the dining-room, where my wraps 
had been hung. Mr. Macnally had got up when I did. 
I got my things down from the pegs below the stairs, 
and hurried out upon the porcli, just as the gentlemen 
from the other side of the piazza were entering the par- 
lor by one of the windows. I almost ran, and was half 
way to the gate before I found I was followed by Mr. 
Macnally. 

‘‘ You have dropped one of your shawls, or perhaps 
it’s Maidy’s little cloak,” he said simply, coming up be- 
Bide me. 


OATECHEIICAL. 


137 


“ It’s Maidy’s ; oh, thank you,” and I stopped and 
took it, panting a little from my flight. “ I — I sha’n’t 
need any one to go home with me,” I added, as he 
walked beside me. Indeed, I’d almost rather be alone. 
I hope you won’t think me rude, but I’d rather.” 

“ It would make me very uncomfortable to think of 
your going by yourself,” he answered. “ It is a lonely 
road.” 

‘‘ I don’t mind it. It’s not far. And there is a 
moon.” 

“ Therefore you don’t need a man.” And when he 
made this poor joke, he gave a short laugh, which 
grated on my ear. There was a moon, in a clear, calm 
sky, and by it I saw, as I glanced at him, that his face 
had a contracted, hard look, unlike himself. It seemed 
to me everything was reehng out of place in my poor 
little world. I felt frightened. 

“ Don’t you think it’s a little unreasonable,” he said, 
in an altered tone, very ordinary and controlled, “to 
avenge on all of us, who haven’t offended you, the of- 
fense of another person, who, you consider, has ?” 

“ I don’t want to avenge anything on anybody, but 
I’m in a hurry. I want to get home to the children. 
I— I think I’d rather go alone.” 

“I hope you’ll let me go with you,” he said, 
earnestly. “ There are often strange, rough-looking 
men about. There is now a schooner unloading over 
in the bay. I didn’t like the look of some men of her 
crew who have been about the village through the 
day.” 

We had got to the gate by this time, and I passed 
out of it, and paused for an instant as I saw he stood 
still. 


138 


CATECHETICAL. 


‘‘Have this much consideration for me,” he said. 
“ I will not go if you forbid me, but I shall be very 
uncomfortable if you do.” 

“ Oh, you’re very kind. I shall not be afraid ; but 
if you want to come — I mean, if you think it best to 
come, I shall, of course, be very much obliged.” 

So he swung the gate shut after us, and wall^ed be- 
side me silently. The night was serene, and the sky 
brilliant with stars, and with a great full moon. There 
was a smell of salt in the air, and the wind was soft 
south-west. The grass was a little damp, and we made 
our way out into the road. W e met no one ; the only 
sound was the slow beat of the surf upon the shore, 
away from which we were walking. Across the level 
fields I could see the light in the window of our cot- 
tage. 

For a long while neither of us spoke; then I 
said, with a suddenness that must have been rather 
startling to my companion, 

“ I have a question to ask you. Will you answer 
me honestly, whatever you may think ?” 

He did not reply at once. After a moment, he 
said, “ I can think of but one question that I wouldn’t 
be willing to answer you honestly, and I don’t believe 
you’ll ask me that. What is it that you want me to 
tell you ?” 

“You heard, I suppose, what Hed said to-night. 
Granting it to be true — for I don’t think ho is old 
enough and bad enough to have invented it — I want 
you to tell me — do you think I have done anything to 
have deserved it ? You have been here all the time, 
you are very observing, and it seems to me you must 
snow if I have.” 


CATECHETICAL. 


139 


“ I don’t understand. What do you mean exactly \ 
Have you deserved what?” 

‘‘ Why, this mortification, this humiliation, this talk- 
ing me over as if it were a possible thing that I — that — ” 
“ I suppose I understand what you mean. But you 
must excuse me if 1 say I can’t look at it as you do. I 
can’t see anything in what E’ed said to mortify and 
humble you. I can understand that it might make you 
angry to feel that any one whom you didn’t favor had 
presumed so far. That a woman must always feel, I 
suppose. But I don’t see any cause for feeling hum- 
bled and degraded by it.” 

‘‘ Then, if you cannot understand, I cannot hope to 
make you. But I will put my question plainer, and 
you can surely answer it that way. Have you ever 
seen anything in my manner, at any time, to justify 
any one in thinking that — that I would — that it would 
be possible for me — to marry again ?” 

A perceptible shudder ran through me, as I forced 
myself to say the words. A long pause followed ; we 
walked on slowly ; my companion hit the heads ofi 
several daisies with his stick, as they shone up at us in 
the moonlight ; I loosened the clasp of the cloak about 
my neck, for it seemed to smother me. 

I promised to be honest,” he said, at last, and 
I will be frank as well. If it is presuming, please do 
not blame me. I never should have dreamed of offer- 
ing you my judgment, if you had not asked it of me.” 

Yes, I know. Well ?” 

My judgment isn’t so very awful ; you needn’t 
be alarmed. You are young, to begin with, and 
very natural. When you are happy, you are happy ; 
when you are pleased, you smile upon whoever 


140 


CATECHETICAL. 


pleases you, and don’t make a disguise of it. 'No 
one could misunderstand you, who was capable of 
discriminating. It doesn’t seem to me possible that any 
man could connect the idea of coquetry with you. But 
that doesn’t help the matter much ; in the world, one 
never knows who one’s judges are. One’s got to be 
prepared for misinterpretation. This gentleman who 
has presumed to think of you : how can one tell whether 
he is true and simple enough to know truth and simplicity 
when he sees it, or whether he carries his conceited and 
tainted judgment with him wherever he goes ? Of one 
thing I can assure you ; I never saw you give him a 
look, a smile, a word, upon which, in my judgment, he 
could have founded the very faintest hope.” 

‘‘ That’s all I wanted to know,” I said, drawing a 
deep breath of relief. 

“ But it’s not all I wanted to say,” he pursued, after 
another pause. ‘^We are on the subject, and I want 
to say one word more before we finally dismiss it. I 
don’t know wliat right I have to presume to give you 
counsel. I have never fancied myself having the 
temerity to do it, but Hed’s eavesdropping seems to 
have houleverse everything. May I say to you just one 
thing ? I warn you that you may not like it, and that 
you may think I am presuming.” 

‘‘ Of course it is right for you to tell me if you see 
me doing wrong; we have known each other well 
enough for that.” 

It is not in my creed that you could possibly do 
wrong.” 

“AhP 

“ But that you might, from tne excess of some good 
feeling, be led into what would be fatal to your liappi- 


CATECHETICAL. 


141 


ness. If it were only wicked people got themselves 
into a mess, it would simplify affairs exceedingly. But 
it’s the ones like you — let me beg your pardon — who 
do it quite as often. Let me say it quickly, for I know 
you won’t like it. You are making a mistake about 
yourself, and putting yourself in a wrong place. How can 
it be wise for you to expect to go througJi the world as 
if you were something sacred — to expect to be treated 
as one apart from the ordinary walks of life ? Believe 
me, people won’t understand you ; the world doesn’t 
acknowledge such distinctions.” 

‘‘ Then I will go away from the world ; I will shut my- 
self up from people if they will nut let me go my way.” 

Well, if you think that the best and wisest thing 
for your two little girls. Won’t it be bringing them 
up to rather a dreary sort of life? Would it be good 
for Maidy, especially, to be brought up cheerlessly ?” 

“ That depends upon what you call cheerlessness.” 

“Well, to be shut out from the world, from all 
healthy young society.” 

“ They needn’t be that.” 

“ They will have to be, if their mother refuses to be 
philosophic about occurrences like that which led us 
into this conversation. If she is unable to school her- 
self to take a cheerful, natural part in the society in 
which she happens to be placed.” 

“ It will be time enough to think about that when 
they are a little older.” 

“ It doesn’t seem to me there is anything gained in 
putting off lessons, when we once acknowledge that 
we’ve got to learn them.” 

“ But I don’t acknowledge — ” 

“ Oh, I think you will, when you have thought it 


142 


CATECHETICAL. 


over. Won’t yon do me one favor? Put all this out 
of your mind ; forgive this presuming gentleman ; of 
course, you needn’t see him again, but let him go in 
peace ; you may well believe he won’t stay very long ; 
and then let things go on as before, and don’t bother 
about anything in the future. You don’t want to make 
I^ed and the colonel and Mrs. Emlyn wretched, I am 
sure, by making too much of the matter.” 

Clever reasoner, ingenuous listener ! Before we had 
reached the cottage gate and lifted its rusty latch, my 
tumultuous feelings had been sensibly reduced, and I 
was almost brought to feel ashamed of them. I went 
and sat between the children’s beds in the little nursery, 
and watched beside them while Sophia was away at 
the village. I certainly hai made rather a fool of my- 
self, and 1 wished sincerely that I hadn’t said so much. 
I promised myself to be wiser in the future. 1 could 
act upon my resolutions, but there was no use in talk- 
ing about them, even to the friends whom I knew best. 
Mr. Macnally undoubtedly felt that I was weak and 
womanish. No one enjoys being thought weak and 
womanish. He had been very kind, but it was plain to 
me that he would treat any display of my exceptional 
views with deep though silent, contempt. I felt sure 
he had wanted to laugh at me all the time, though he 
had been so deferential. I promised myself that I 
would let things go on exactly as before ; only I would 
be on my guard if any more middle-aged widowers 
strayed into our peaceful pastures. 


CHAPTEE XIL 


SECOND THOUGHTS. 

** Thej are dangerous guides the feelings 

M ES. EMLYX was very much distressed about the 
matter, which Xaomi did not fail to repeat to 
her in full. The result was I was allowed to remain in 
quarantine for several days, and the widoWer was dis- 
couraged at second-hand. He went away, as might 
have been expected. Mr. Macnally, it is probable, sug- 
gested that nothing be said to me about tlie matter, 
and so, though I had had several visits from everybody 
but Hed, who was en penitence, there were no allu- 
sions to the subject. It was a little awkward, as no- 
body dared to make a joke of it, and it wasn’t the kind 
of thing to bear serious treatment. It must have been 
a constant temptation to Mr. Macnally, but he was so 
very honorable, I never detected a smile on his mouth, 
or a twinkle in his easily ignited eye. It is disagreea- 
ble to feel one’s self the object of such circumspection. 
One distrusts nothing so much as what one’s friends 
do not say to one. 

A day or two after the gentleman’s departure, I 
was, by a little stratagem, got to Happy-go-lucky for 
dinner, and once the ice was broken, everything went 
on as before. There was no change, except that every 
one was kinder than ever, and that my dear host, in- 

[1431 


144 : 


SECOND THOUGHTS. 


stead of resenting my objection to bis plans for my 
liappiness, made more of me than ever, as if to atone 
for having unwittingly given me even an imaginary 
cause of pain. AVe slid again into the old life, and no 
one, married or single, came to disturb our easy, pleas- 
ant days. Only once did the colonel propose sending 
for some friends to pass a week. 

“ An’ you love me, no,” cried his wife. Life’s too 
short for that sort of thing, not to say the summer. It 
gives me indigestion to be civil to people for whom 1 
do not care. I simply will not have them.” 

So she simply did not have them, and we were hap- 
py. I read German as usual with her. I drove with 
the colonel. I went crabbing and fishing and sailing 
with the children and theif tutor. Maidy and Baby 
were lugged about with unfailing patience and good- 
nature by Naomi and Macnally, and even by Ned. I 
don’t know how I could have fancied I .deserved half 
the kindness I got, or have been comfortable under it. 
But it all seemed the natural order of things, and I was 
happy. 

The summer had worn on now to the latter half of 
August. It was Saturday, I think the third Saturday 
in August. Saturday was always a festival in the Hap- 
py-go-lucky calendar, because there were no lessons. 
Y ery soon after breakfast the cart had driven up, for 
Maidy and me to go crabbing. We spent all the morn- 
ing on the bay, Maidy and I drifting along in the boat, 
and Macnally, Naorni and Ned plunging about in the 
water with their nets, shouting, splashing, dripping. Rex 
sat in the prow of the boat, shivering if a drop of water 
fell on him ; Maidy dipped her hands in the little rip- 
ples of waves that the south-west wind made as it came 


SECOND THOUGHTS. 


145 


across tlie sand-hills from the sea. The sanshine was 
now and then obscured by fleecy white clouds 

“ — shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind,” 

which moved across the deep blue sky. The wide 
stretcliing country looked green and ripe with the late 
summer vegetation. Beside the bay lay long acres of 
unfenced meadows, among the damp grass of which grew 
meadow-pinks by millions, and where snipe fed and 
fluttered. From the boat, where I rocked idly, I could 
see, across the level stretch of flelds, here and there a low 
farm-house, with its environment of trees : here and 
there a distant sharp white steeple pricking up into the 
sky from its surrounding village. The wind-mills waved 
their white arms in the sunlight ; in a fleld near by, the 
men stacked the sheaves of com beside a wagon loaded 
with great golden pumpkins. The ducks along the 
shore dived and paddled and quacked ; once and again 
a white gull darted down from the heights above, dipped 
in the blue water for its prey, and flashed away victori- 
ous. I liked the smell of the seaweed lying on the 
shore ; I liked the sights around me, and the sense of 
security, and the idleness and the feeling of health that 
the flne air gave me. I watched the crabbers, now led 
far away from me, now back almost beside the boat. 
It would have bored me very much to have been as 
muddy and wet as they, but it amused me to watch 
them. I held Maidy’s dress in one hand, to keep her 
from tipping over into the water, and I talked a little 
to Bex to keep his spirits up, and so the morning 
passed. When it was time to go, they put the baskets 
of crabs in the boat, and Macnally and Ned, up to their 
7 


146 


SECOND THOUGHTS. 


waists in water, drew ns along tlie shore, half the length 
of the bay, to where we had left the cart. 

It’s quite a march of triumph,” I said. 

Especially to the crabs,” said Mr. Macnally. 

It wasn’t quite so much of a march of triumph 
when we had all, wet and dry, to get into the cart. 

“ Which will yon be neebor to, me or the crabs, 
ehure ?” asked Macnally, as he stood by the basket of 
crabs, the most abominable object, his bare legs covered 
with sea-weed and mud, and his trowsers, rolled above 
the knees, dripping with water. 

“ I’d much rather get out and walk than be neigh- 
bor to any of you.” 

“ I say, iJled, we are a^ most disreputable lot,” he 
exclaimed, as that vagabond came up. “You and I 
and the crabs must hang on behind the cart, while 
.tiaomi gets on the front seat. We must trust to them 
to drive. Life is always uncertain.” 

A more disreputable lot certainly never drove 
through the peaceful village ; Sophia’s nostrils were 
justified in their expression of contempt, as she flounced 
away from the front door of the kitchen, where she was 
sitting with Baby, when we drew up before the gate. 
She would not look upon us. 

It’s only to get Baby,” called out I^aomi. “ They 
are all going home to dinner with us.” 

But it was useless calling to her. Naomi had to go 
and get Baby and And her sack and her ‘hat. Sophia 
would none of us. Mrs. Emlyn, even, thought 
Macnally and Ned ought to be ashamed of their cos- 
tume, or their want of it, and she sent them up-stairs, 
sharply reprimanded, to make themselves respectable for 
dinner. 


SECOND THOUGHTS. 


147 


‘‘There is a limit,” she said, with a severe look upon 
the four slioes left standing on the threshold, and the 
four barefooted tracks across the boards of the piazza. 

IN^ed only rectified matters by a clean suit of his 
ordinary blue fiannel, but Mr. Macnally came down a 
petit maitre, the daintiest little man I ever saw. l^o- 
body had ever known he had such clothes. He looked 
as handsome as possible; his hair, which had grown 
since June, was parted fastidiously. His clothes were 
of rather a light gray, and of the best 'London make. 
The children howled around him ; even Maidy seemed 
to understand the joke, and clapped her little hands 
when the colonel turned him round and round to look 
at him. Baby dived into his pocket and tore out his 
fresh and most distinguished-looking handkerchief. 

“ It’s embroidered ; it’s got initials on it cried 
Haomi, catching it from Baby. “ How many letters — 
L — what is it ; isn’t that an L ? I didn’t know you 
had a middle name.” 

But Macnally flushed and seemed annoyed, and, 
putting out his hand, took it back peremptorily, and 
pushed it out of sight in his pocket ; then he kissed 
Baby with a brightening of the face, as if to beg Iier 
dear little pardon for being annoyed at anything which 
she had been remotely the occasion of. Mr. Macnally 
was very swell all through the dinner, though with the 
slight disadvantage of having Baby on his knee the 
winkle time. Bhe refused to leave him, and he would 
not permit her to be taken away. It was a more in- 
formal meal than ordinary, even ; we had not been ex- 
pected quite so near the regular dinner hour, and things 
came up rather intermittently. It was quite immaterial 
to us at what stage the farcied crabs came ; they got a 


148 


SECOND THOUGHTS. 


little mixed up witli the dessert, but we ate them all 
the same, together with some belated sweet potatoes, 
which appeared contemporaneously. Naomi left her 
pudding to run out and get a flower for the tutor’s 
iDutton-hole. Maidy insisted upon going round the 
table and sitting beside him, and having her peaches 
and cream carried around after her. My discipline at 
home was indifferent, but at Happy-go-lucky it faded 
out of sight. The colonel encouraged the children in 
all sorts of liberties, and Mrs. Emlyn snubbed me when 
I remonstrated. 

“ Your children are well enough,” she said. “ You 
must let them alone a little ; that is all they need.” 

We all sat on the piazza after dinner, Macnally sit- 
ting in the hammock, and the babies and Naomi all 
tumbling about him, swinging him and being swung 
alternately. Mrs. Emlyn had her stocking bag and her 
dictionaries in a chair beside her. 

“ You don’t get on much with your German,” she 
said to me, shaking her head. 

“ Dear Mrs. Emlyn,” I cried, “ if you only knew 
how lazy I am !” 

“Well, it’s good for you, I suppose, but I should 
think you would get tired of it.” 

“ I’m not tired of anything here. I only wish it 
might go on forever.” 

“Somebody’s walking over your grave, Mr. Mac- 
nally. You shivered,” cried Naomi. # 

“ My ‘ good clothes ’ are too thin, perhaps,” he said, 
rolling up Baby into a little ball and burying her in 
some shawls in the hammock, at which Rex barked 
and made an uproar. 

“Seriously,” said Naomi, “do you believe in that?” 


SECOND THOUGHTS. 


14 :» 

‘‘ Believe in what ? My good clothes ? Of course 
I believe in my good clothes ; you would too if you’d 
paid for them. They cost a lot of money.” 

“ Oh, you know what I mean ; shivering when peo- 
ple walk over your grave, and all that.” 

“ Nonsense, Naomi,” said her aunt, ‘^you’re getting 
superstitious as well as sentimental. Where do you 
learn such things ? A year ago yon never talked such 
nonsense.” 

“ I heard my uncle say that,” said Naomi, doggedly. 

“ W e shall have to be careful what we say before 
you.” 

“ Oh, you’ll soon get tired of that. But why 
should people say so if it isn’t true ?” 

“ What ague-fits the old Eomans must have had, 
Naomi, with their graves along the roadsides. I should 
think they would have shivered all their bones out of 
joint,” said her aunt. 

“ They did have ague-fits sometimes ; I read of it.” 

But these must have been continual, with the 
steady tramp of multitudes. All business must have 
been suspended, for every one in Borne must have been 
chattering, from the least to the greatest. I think, 
Naomi, we’ll have to dismiss that theory for tJie want 
of proof.” 

Naomi looked a little ashamed. “ What made you 
shiver then, Mr. Macnally, if it wasn’t that ?” she said, 
persistently. 

“ I’m very delicate, you know, and I think I feel a 
little draught.” 

As we were holding our hats on our heads for the 
gale, even Maidy laughed, 

“Aunt Penelope,” said Naomi, quite ready to 


150 


SECOND THOUGHTS. 


change the subject, “ you promised us we might have 
tea on the beach some night this month. This is just 
the night.” 

“ Because the wind is blowing a gale 

“ The men on the beach said it would fall at sun- 
down.” 

“ What do they say about the shivering business ?” 

Naomi pouted. “ Mayn’t I go and tell the cook to 
get things ready for us, Aunt Penelope ?” 

“ Better see first if anybody wants it but yourself.” 

Naomi fell upon me with kisses, and begged me to 
say I wanted tea on the beach. “ And you too, Mr. 
Macnally, say you want tea on the beach.” 

“ I would rather have tea on the beach. Miss Naomi, 
than inherit a fortune — ^yes, than have an offer, or than 
be elected President, or than have a pair of diamond 
earrings or than find out where my grave is going to 
be—” 

“ You see. Aunt Penelope, they all want it — may I 
tell the cook ?” 

The cook was told, the preparations began. Naomi 
was full of business. Mr. Macnally and she and the 
children and I were to go along the beach and select a 
“ site.” Ned was to follow later in the cart with the 
pots and kettles and the things to eat, and then was to 
go back for the colonel and his aunt. 


CHAPTEE Xin. 


TWO OKAY EGGS IN THE SAND.' 

** And oh, those days beside the seal 
The skerries paved with knotted shells, 

The bright pools of anemone, 

The star fish with its fretted cells, 

The scudding of the light foam-bells 
Along the stretch of rippled strand 
Spotted with worms of twisted sand. 

The white gulls, and the shining sails. 

And the thoughts they all brought from the Wonder-land !” 

OZnV Grange, 

I T was an afternoon to be remembered ; the sky and 
sea were gloriously blue, the wind was fresh, but 
not cold ; a storm had just spent itself out at sea ; the snrf 
ran very high and burst in marvelous glitter and mag- 
nificence at our feet. The delight of that beach always 
was its loneliness ; there was rarely a human footprint 
on it ; the sand always lay smooth and pure up to the 
very banks; now and then the little three-pronged 
print of a sand-piper’s claw, or the winding trail of a 
snake from among the tufts of beach-grass, would, 
mark it. 

We found the place where we meant to make our 
encampment. It was a spot where the beach was 
widest, and where we were well sheltered by the sand- 
hill. We spread down our shawls and blankets; the 
children went ofi to gather drift wood for the fire, Mr. 

[ 151 ] 


152 


TWO GRAY EGGS IN THE SAND. 


Macnally to drive in tlie stakes and find the cross-piece 
for tlie kettle. I wrapped myself in the shawls, and lay 
dreaming, with the sound of the surf in my ears. A 
tuft of beach-grass grew at my elbow, with the mys- 
terious little circle in the sand around its base ; and be- 
yond it, idly looking, I saw, in the grayish-yellow sand, 
two grayish-yellow eggs, laid in a sand-made nest. 
The eggs were so near the color of the sand, and the 
depression in which they lay so slight, it was almost 
matter of surprise I had discerned them. The little 
hollow was lined with smafl, smooth pieces of shell, well 
worn by the beating of the waves. .Trusting little 
creatures, committing their treasure to the mighty One 
who rules the tide crawling to its bounds beside them, 
and the deep sky with its hidden tempests of wind 
and fire and water, spread above them ! 

The little nest gave me many thoughts as I bent 
over it. The eggs were still warm, so I moved my 
blanket a few feet further away, and lay very still, that 
the mother might come back and hover them with her 
soR breast. She did not come, as long as I watched, 
and my eyes wandered away to my two little ones, com- 
mitted to God’s care as blindly, with the waves of death 
washing up beside them, and the firmament of destiny, 
with its manifold and hidden powers, spread over them 
Nothing between them and the vastness of life’s possi- 
bilities but my feeble, fiuttering heart’s protection and 
God’s omnipotence. With tears dimming my eyes I 
watched the little figures moving about upon the 
sand, and pledged myself in my own heart to live 
and, if need be, die for them, who had no other earthly 
guard. 


TWO OEAY EGGS IN THE SAND. 


153 


I was startled from my revery by a step beside 
me. It was Mr. Macnally, with his axe over his 
shoulder. 

“ I am tired, as becomes a gentleman ; I’ll do no 
more menial service in my good clothes,” he exclaimed, 
throwing down his axe upon the sand. 

I gave a cry. Alas ! the poor little nest was buried 
l)eneath the cruel steel. 

“ What have you done I exclaimed, starting up. 
“ Ah, the poor, poor little nest !” 

And I lifted the axe from the crushed and scattered 
eggs. In my afternoon’s revery I had identified myself 
so with the little guardian of the nest, that I could not 
keep back my tears. “ The miserable little mother,” I 
cried, looking into the beach grass for her. 

“ A plague upon my carelessness,” he cried ; “ it 
was a nasty thing to do.” 

I went into the beach grass, peering down ; a 
plover, with a piercing cry, flew up and darted away. 
“ The miserable mother !” I repeated, gazing after her 
through my tears, which could not have seemed other- 
wise than silly, to a man. 

“ Upon my word, I’m soriy,” he said, with a little 
harshness in his voice. I glanced at him, and his face 
showed pain enough to make me ready to forgive him. 
I don’t know whether it was my tears or the bird’s sharp 
cry that had given him the pain, of which, however, he 
seemed genuinely ashamed. 

“ I know you didn’t mean to be careless, of course ; 
but I had been watching it for an hour, meaning to 
warn any one that came near, and to propose that we 
move away from here, not to scare her ; the poor, poor 
little mother !” 

7 * 


154 


TWO GRAY EGGS IN THE SAND. 


“ I hope she won't lose her mind,” he said, testil}^. 
** One hears of being as crazy as a coot ; perhaps a plover 
iflight go insane as well.” 

1 looked at him reproachfully, which only added to 
Siis irritation. 

“You’re so unhappy,” he said; “and yet I’ll be 
bound you ate an omelette for your breakfast.” 

“ If I didn’t know you were sorry, I shouldn’t for- 
give you,” I said, sitting down on the heap of shawls, 
and turning my face away from him. 

“ I am sorry,” he said, in a softened tone, throw- 
ing himself down on the sand ; “ but I just can’t bear 
to see — anybody — cry. And it seemed to me such 
a little thing to cry about — two gray eggs in the 
sand!” 

“ It wasn’t just two gray eggs in the sand ; it was a 
great deal more.” 

“Well, what was it; won’t you tell me what it 

was 

“ It was my thoughts,” I said, swallowing down 
some more tears as my eyes fell upon the fluttering lit- 
tle white flgures in the distance. His eye followed 
mine, and no doubt his thought ; for his mind always 
moved lightning-quick, and his sympathy was as keen. 
I felt he watched me covertly for a few minutes. It 
made me restless, and I got up and said I was going to 
bring the children back. 

“Why should you go,” he said; “ I can make them 
hear.” 

And he gave a peculiar, clear call, with which 
Haomi was familiar. She waved her handkerchief in 
reply, and went tov;-ards the little ones, playing beyond 
her on the beach. I sat down again, and my compar. 


TWO GRAY EGGS IN THE SAND. 


155 


ion resumed Ms position near me, only with his face 
seaward. The sun was sinking behind the hills at our 
back. The wind had fallen, as the sailors had pre- 
dicted. Lovely tints from the sunset colored the sea 
and the opposite heavens. The tide was coming in, 
and the great waves, edged with white foam, rushed up 
the sands, ever nearer and nearer to us. Through 
openings in the sand-hills, when we looked behind us 
towards the sunset, there were beautiful glimpses of 
the green meadows and the blue Shinnecock Hills 
that bounded the horizon, and far, far on each hand 
stretched the wide, lonely beach, on which the ever- 
changing, yet ever-monotonous waves beat their long- 
drawn music out. 

At last, through the opening nearest to us, came 
Ned’s lusty shout. 

“ The ball opens,” cried Macnally, starting to his 
feet. “ No more time for sunsets.” 

‘‘ Do you want me to help you get the tea ready ?” 
and I got up rather reluctantly. 

“ I’m sorry to say, I think it is your duty.” 

“Hurry up,” cried Ned. “Don’t you know I’ve 
got to go back for the others.” 

The cart was soon unloaded ; such a lot of things, 
even to a jug of water and several bundles of pine 
knots. 

“ They didn’t depend much upon the resources of 
the country,” said Macnally. “ I had found a spring, 
but I had misgivings about the drift-wood holding out. 
Better bring a few more bundles with you when you 
come back with the colonel and your aunt.” 

When Ned was gone, we lighted the fire and swung 


156 


TWO GRAY EGGS m THE SAND. 


the kettle, and spread the cloth on the bottom of an 
old “ pannj ” that Mr. Macnally had found up in the 
beach grass high and dry, and had dragged down on 
tlie sand. It made an excellent table, except for a ten- 
dency to slope downward at the ends, so the things to 
eat had to be all put in th$ middle. The fire was just 
beyond on the sand, and was blazing brightly, and the 
kettle already throwing out its steam, when the chil- 
dren’s voices were heard approaching. 

“ Oh, there,” I said, as I, on my knees, was stirring 
the coffee in the little pot in which it was to boil, “ I 
meant to have taken those broken eggs away. I don’t 
want the children to see them, particularly Ned, who 
hasn’t any principle about birds’ nests.” 

‘‘ I’ll go and bury ’em dacent, ” he said. “ And sha’n’t 
I bury the hatchet too ?” he added, looking back. 

I was a little ashamed of my sensibility by this 
time ; the practical business of getting tea had restored 
me, therefore I didn’t mind his lambent wit. 

The children broke into exclamations of delight at 
the fire and the big cake on the table, and the biscuits 
and the cold chicken and the jar of marmalade. They 
hovered like little gnats around the fire, and wdth shrieks 
of delight laid on occasionally a modest splinter to in- 
crease the blaze. When the beach cart appeared in the 
opening with the dear colonel and the dearer aunt, we 
set up a great shout of welcome, and all ran to conduct 
them across the sand to the fire. The cofiee boiled over, 
of course, as soon as I turned my back, so I had to hurry 
to it, and leave to the others the duties of hospitality. 
But it made a delicious smell that gave the colonel 
more pleasure than all our welcome or all the glories of 
the sea and sky. 


TWO GRAY EGGS IN THE SAND. 


157 


The colonel sat on a barrel at the head of the table, 
with his overcoat on. He was very careful about not 
taking cold, and said, though we had heard it before, 
that eternal vigilance was the price of health. Mrs. 
Emlyn sat on the slope of the panny, at the foot ; and 
Haomi, her yellow hair damp with the spray, but her 
cheeks red with the fire, and her eyes bright with en- 
joyment, ran from the kettle to the table ceaselessly, 
now handing up a cup of cofiee to her uncle on his bar- 
rel, now carrying the biscuits to her aunt, or giving 
Hed, under protest, a second spoon for his marma- 
lade. 

“You know there’s only one apiece; now Maidy 
and I will have to use the same. It’s just exactly like 
you.” 

“Children, there’s one spice we never lack at 
any of our meals,” cried the colonel, shaking his head, 
but drinking his coffee with complacency. 

“It’s grown indispensable to me,” said Macnally, 
buttering his bread with the carving-knife. “ A meal 
wherein we vaguely feel there is some want, is a meal 
where Haomi and her brother don’t give us any quar- 
relling.” 

“ It’s all very well for you to make a joke of it,” 
said Col. Emlyn. “But let me tell you, such hab- 
its are bad tenants ; they ruin the property, and you 
won’t easily get them out. I may live to see JSTaomi 
nag her husband and Ned bully his wife.” 

“ There is no danger,” cried Haomi, tossing her 
pretty head. 

“ Hot the least, for you,” said Hed, in an offensive 
tone, which embittered the biscuit that Haomi had sat 
down to eat. 


158 


TWO GRAY EGGS m THE SAND. 


“ I know wkat kind of a man I ska’n’t marrj,” she 
said, with a mouthful. 

So do I, lots of ’em ; in fact I don’t know any 
other,” returned ISTed. * 

I was still kneeling at the fire, Tlex beside me, pour- 
ing out the cofiee — endless cups. 

“ You haven’t had anything to eat,” said the 
colonel, his appetite appeased. Macnally, I’m ashamed 
of you, in your good clothes too. 1 should have 
thought you’d have had better manners.” 

“Don’t reproach me,” cried Macnally, “I’ve been 
feeding these children for the last half hour. One 
can’t be nursery-maid and preux chevalier at the same 
time. I’m hungry as a bear myself.” 

The meal was a very long one. The sunset was 
gone, and a faint twilight begun, when the last appe- 
tite was satisfied. 

“ How we must be going home,” said the colonel, 
bustling about ; “ it is getting very, damp.” 

“ Oh, bother home !” cried Macnally, flinging him- 
self down before the fire. “ It’s just beginning to be 
pleasant here. Let’s stay till the moon rises.” 

“ The children,” I said. “ I’U have to take them 
home.” 

“Oh, hang the children,” he returned, profanely. 
“ Or throw them on the fire.” 

Maidy thereupon climbed into my arms as we sat 
around the blaze, and Baby stared at him, standing be- 
hind me, with her chin on my shoulder. He looked a 
pictm’esque figure, lying stretched upon the sand, with 
the strong light of the fire on his slender, well-made 
limbs, his black hair, and his intensely shining eyes. 

A compromise was made ; the children went home 


TWO GBAY EGGS IN THE SAND. 


159 


in til 3 cart with the colonel, who was to send back 
the cart with one of the men. This man was to finish 
packing up the pots and kettles, and was to drive back 
such of the party as desired to drive. We were all 
grown very lazy since our supper, and nobody wanted 
to be post-prandial waiter or kitchen-maid. We pushed 
the panny, feast and all, into the background, spread 
our blankets near the fire, piled on pine knots, and sat 
down around the blaze, Rex with his nose almost in the 
ashes. 

The night was still and beautifal, the sky deep and 
dark, full of sharp, clear points of stars. The tide had 
I urned and was going slowly down ; the roar of the 
waves had lessened, or we were used to it. Where the 
fire-light reached the water there was a wonderful 
pageant, but, except that stripe of brilliance all was 
dark, and the unseen roar beyond seemed sullen. 

“ The moon’s due in half an hour from now,” said 
Ned, bending down to look at his big silver school-boy 
watch by the fire-light. 

“ Oh, Mr. Macnally,” cried Naomi, who sat close 
beside me, with her hands clasped round her knees, a 
red shawl drawn over her head ; “ say something for 
us.” 

“ Good-night, do you mean ?” 

“ Oh, you know I don’t mean that.” 

“Well, what do you mean ? Do you mean you’re 
*oo lazy to chatter, as well as to put the cups and 
s.iucers away ? Are you going to turn over your talk- 
ing to me ?” 

“ I know you understand me. I want you to recite 
some verses for us — to say something that you know 
by heart. Please, now, don’t make a fuss. Remember 


160 


TWO GRAY EGGS IN THE SAND. 


what jOH tell me when Aunt Penelope makes mo play 
for company.” 

“ Right, IS'aomi, that’s a very good argument ; Mr. 
Macnally, you must begin at once.” 

“ Exactly, Mrs. Einlyn ; but where shall I begin ?” 

‘‘Ask Naomi; she se^ms to know what you can 
do.” 

“ I know, I know !” cried Naomi, all eagerness. “ Be- 
gin — right at the beginning of — ‘ Shamus O’Brien.’ ” 

“No, no, Naomi, that’s not fair. You don’t make 
a good choice, either. Let me tell you the ‘ Pied 
Piper.’ ” 

“ I don’t want the ‘ Pied Piper.’ ” 

“ Then, have something about the sea — ‘ Sir Patrick 
Spens,’ the ‘ Wreck of the Hesperus,’ ‘ Inch Cape 
Rock’—” 

“I don’t want any wreck or any sea. I want 
‘ Shamus O’Brien.’ ” 

“ ‘ Shamus O’Brien !’ ” we all called out. 

And we had “ Shamus O’Brien in fact, we have it 
still, for I don’t believe any of the four who listened to 
it will ever be able to forget it if they try. Naomi 
was shivering and sobbing in my arras when it w^as 
over; Ned took along breath, as if he had not breathed 
since it began ; Mrs. Emlyn drew back lier face from 
the firelight, and did not trust herself to speak for a 
long time ; and as for me — but I cried so easily, it was 
no great victory to make me cry. I think that victory 
might have been won though, over tougher and coldei 
natures ; I think there are few people who would not 
have thrilled and shivered and wept at that marvelous 
recital; at the wonderful pathos of his voice, the 
wonderful power of his glance ; — “ fountain and fire 


TWO GRAY EGGS IN THE SAND. 


161 


I could not an^yze liis empire over my feelings, then 
or ever ; I did not even ask myself what moved me ; I 
trembled and wept, and lifted my head and looked 
away, and tried to think of other things, as a child 
might. 

He looked pale when, the recital over, he bent down 
and threw some more wood upon the hre. 

“ It will be gone before the moon arrives,” he said, 
looking towards the east, where there was as yet no 
sign of its appearing. We all sat quite still; nobody 
wanted to talk for a few minutes ; Macnally went to 
see if the cart were coming. He did not return till 
Kex’s sharp bark had warned us that it was. 

“ Who’s going to ride said Mrs. Emlyn, getting 
up and shaking off her emotion. 

“ Better see for whom there’s room when all the 
things are in,” I said. 

When the things were all in, there was barely room 
for two. I felt quite fresh and ready to walk, and so, 
after a good deal of protest, it was settled that Naomi 
should ride with her aunt, and Ned and Mr. Macnally 
and I should walk home along the shore. Ned didn’t 
want to walk, and grumbled a good deal that he was 
not allowed to drive, and the man sent on foot, but his 
aunt would rather have walked to the Gulf of Mexico 
than have permitted him to drive her half a mile. 

While we were raking out the embers, the moon 
came up; the last expiring blaze of the fire looked 
pitiful, in its sudden glorious light. We were quite 
ready, inconstant ones, to leave it, and start on our walk 
along the now illumiuated beach. Ned kept with us 
for a long while — as long, indeed, as Mr. Macnally 
would sing with him. Ned had a good voice, but his 


162 


TWO GRAY EGGS IN THE SAND. 


I’epertoire was not extended, and only that his and his 
tutor’s voices blended and sounded rich and strong and 
mellow, would one have been contented to hear, over 
and over, the same ineffable nonsense. When Mr. Mac- 
nally halted, and dragged, and finally declined to go 
further on such a monotonous strain, !N^ed betook him- 
self off, by a short cut home, across the fields. Eex, 
draggled and damp with the spray and the dew com- 
bined, ran on before us, a white speck in the moon- 
light. 

The sand was heavy, but we walked down close to 
the waves, where it was wet and a little harder. Some- 
times there was a silver mist over all ; then that would 
be swept away, and the full glory of the moon would 
overfiow the heavens and the sea. Sometimes, when I 
was tired, we would sit down on the sand and rest a 
little while ; we did not talk much. It was the sort of 
night that one feels can’t come twice in a summer, such 
a rare combination of cloudless sky, full harvest moon, 
and balmy air. 

Under a harvest moon,” said Macnally, as we sat 
resting thus upon the sands, “ one may naturally 
moralize upon what one has been sowing through the 
summer.” 

“ This idle summer 1 I am afraid it would depress 
me to think what I have sown, or rather what I 
haven’t.” 

“ We scatter seeds with careless hand, 

And deem them ever past, 

But they shall last ; 

, In the dread judgment they and we shall meet.” 


TWO GRAY EGGS IN THE SAND. 163 

“Why do you say such things?” I said, shivering, 
getting up. 

“ I’m sure I don’t know. One can’t help thinking, 
a little — once in a wliile.” 

“ I should have said you put the periods pretty far 
apart.” 

“ Why ? Because I couldn’t cry over a bird’s egg ?” 

“ I thought that was buried.” 

The rest of the party had been at the house a long 
time when we got there. Mrs. Emlyn was walking up 
and down the piazza, and looking rather anxious. 

“ You will be tired to death,” she said. “ It was a 
great walk for you, through that heavy sand. I should 
have made you ride. I have kept the cart to take you 
home.” 

“Thank you. Then I won’t sit down.” 

“ Ho, you’d better not. It’s getting late, and it is 
damp,” she said, with characteristic frankness. “ Be- 
sides, the man is waiting up, and he’s been working 
hard all day.” 

“ I’ll drive you,” said Hed, going down the steps. 
I kissed Mrs. Emlyn good-night, and went down after 
him. Mr. Macnally was standing beside the cart; I 
saw him put his hand on Hed’s shoulder, and heard 
him say to him in a low voice, 

“ Let me drive to-night, won’t you ?” 

Hed started, and looked not well pleased ; he drew 
back and said, a little sulkily, “ If you want to.” 

“ That’s a good fellow,” said his tutor, low, as I 
came down the last step ; and he put me in the cart, 
and sprang in beside me. 

We drove on silently for a while. Hothing that he 
bad ever said to me had ever startled me. What ho 


164 : TWO GEAY EQGS IN THE SAND. 

had said to Ned did startle me. Why did he want to 
drive me home to-night? He always respected Ned’s 
rights and position so scrupnlonsly, and never asked 
favoi*s. As he had said, one must think a little — once 
in a while ; and I vaguely and uncomfortably began to 
think. 

He stooped down to look at his watch by the moon- 
light. “The post-office won’t be closed,” he said; 
“ sha’n’t we go for the letters, before I take 3^ou home?” 

“You’d better leave me, first,” I said. “It’s late; 
besides, I’m a little cold.” 

“ Here are two shawls under the seat, beside the 
blanket. Tie my handkerchief around your neck. 
See, you can’t be cold now. And we may never have 
another harvest moon. Besides, I may have some let- 
ters that — that I want to consult you about. Go with 
me to the post-office, won’t you, please ?” 

It seemed perverse to say no, and I wanted to go, 
too. So I wrapped the shawls around me, and tied the 
handkerchief on my throat, and consented to drive on 
past the cottage, at the gate of which stood Sophia, 
looking out for me. 

“ I shall be back presently, ” I caUed, as we drove 
by. I am sorry to say she didn’t give me any answer, 
but slammed the gate and went in. 

“ I shall pay for it to-morrow,” I sighed. 

“ An hour of this harvest moon is worth a month of 
her bad temper,” he said slackening the horse’s gait. 
It was heavenly. The village looked asleep, save for a 
light in a window here and there, and a girl’s figure 
now and then leaning over a gate, listening to some de- 
parting sweetheart’s words. The white houses were 
picturesipe flecked with the shadows of the vine leaves 


TWO GRAY EGGS IN THE SAND. 


165 


growing over them. The trees threw long shadows on 
the road. At the post-office there was a light stiU 
burning. 

‘‘We are not too late,” he said, springing out, but 
he came back in a few minutes looking a little disap- 
pointed. 

“ There are no letters,” he said, “ only the colonel’s 
ScientijiG American^ and some agricultural journals. 
His ten acres ought to be pretty well worked up. 
Every published light is thrown upon them.” 

“Have you no letter for me? For once I was ex- 
pecting one.” 

“You?” he exclaimed. “I, thought you never 
cared for letters. You told me, I remember, that noth- 
ing coming from outside South Berwick could be of 
any interest to you.” 

“ Nous mom change tout cela. I have an interest 
now.” 

“ Seriously ?” he said, giving me a quick look. 

“ Yery seriously.” 

“ Don’t make me uneasy,” he said, rather low. 

“ Why should it make you uneasy ? You don’t tell 
me about your letters.” 

“ I would — I meant to, if you would listen — if you 
cared to know.” 

“That’s all very well. I’ve wanted to know all 
summer and you haven’t told me.” 

“ Ah ! I’m afraid you’re not sincere to-night. It is 
not hke you to be insincere.” 

“ At all events. I’ll be sincere about my letters. I 
am expecting — a pattern for Maidy’s new set of aprons. 
I can’t sleep for thinking of it. I wrote two weeks 
ago, and no word has come about it.” 


166 


TWO GRAY EGGS IN THE SAND. 


All !” he said, with a sigh, I believe thaf s all 
the interest that you have in life.” 

“ Well, that and their fall dresses.” 

He had not turned the horse’s head when we left 
the post-office, but was driving on through the village. 

“ Where are we going ?” I said. 

“ Anywhere,” he answered, ‘‘ but towards home.” 

“ Oh, please turn back. It’s late. I — want to go 
home.” 

“ To lie awake, pondering the pinafores, and the 
fall dresses ?” 

He saw that I was distressed and in earnest about it, 
and slowly turned the horse’s head, and slowly drove 
back through the sleeping, silvered village. 

“ It has been such a perfect day. You might have 
added just a half hour to it, if you had been generous ; 
you wouldn’t have missed it from your pinafores.” 

“ Yes, it has been a perfect day. How many, 
many we have had this lovely summer !” 

“ If this should be the last,” he said, “should you be 
very sorry?” 

“ Why should it be the last ? There is a week left 
of August. And Sophia may give us a respite for 
September, that is, if the nursery stove can be made to 
draw respectably.” 

I was so unused to fencing and parrying, and being, 
as he said, insincere, that the horse went much too 
slowly for me, and I feared every word that my com- 
panion uttered. He saw it, I think, and was silent. 
When we got out at the cottage gate, he exclaimed, 
with a little sigh : 

“ Well, it has been a nice day, if you haven’t a good 
word to say for it.” 


TWO GRAY EGGS TN THE SAND. 


167 


Kow I was inside my own gate, I felt at liberty to 
praise it. “It has been a nice day ; I never denied it. 
It has been the nicest — in the world.” 

“ It might have been half an hour longer, and no- 
body the poorer,” he said, a little wistfully. 

When he was gone, and I was alone in my room, I 
couldn’t help thinking — a little, and my thoughts did 
not please me. What if I had been sowing, all this 
idle summer, that of which the harvest would be bitter 
and grievous ? What did it all mean ? I did not want to 
think. I untied the handkerchief from about my 
throat, and smoothed it out, with a strange sort of 
sensation, as my fingers passed over the delicate fabric. 
The initials I bent down to study by the light. They 
were entwined in a very intricate monogram. There 
were four letters ; but how to arrange them I did not 
know. There was an M and a B. These were the only fa- 
miliar ones. I had believed his Christian name to be Ber- 
nard ; I had always seen him write his initials B. M. ; 
here was certainly, in addition, an L and a C. Who 
was this man, who had come so near me ; with whom I 
was on these familiar, easy terms of friendship ; happy, 
if I could satisfy myself and him, that we were not on 
any other terms ? A self-reproachful confusion reigned 
in my mind. I could not have told exactly what I re- 
proached myself for ; but it seemed natural, as things 
were wrong, that I had done something wrong as my 
share of the matter. 



But these refiections, intangible, and, in a way, of 
the imagination, were swiftly put to flight. From the 
open door of the nursery came a sound, terrible always’ 
to my ear, the barking cough of croup. My heart sank, 
with a sort of sick faintness, as I threw down the hand- 


168 TWO GRAY EGGS IN THE SAHD. 

kerchief which I still held, and hurried to the nursery. 
I knew what it meant. Poor Baby’s tea-party on the 
beach might cost her dear. Her little white dress I 
knew had felt damp, when I had put her in the cart 
with the colonel. Over it, she had had but a light 
flannel sack, which we had taken her out in at noon- 
day. Of course her shoes must have been wet, for she 
had been playing close down by the waves all the after- 
noon. Against my self-accusations I had to put the 
fact that she had gone through the same exposure many 
times before, without any apparent ill result. I had 
grown careless because the children had been so steadily 
well all summer. I was tortured with the recollection 
of her, so bright and eager, in Macnally’s arms, leaning 
down to put the last stick on the fire, before she was 
sent home. Her little white dress and red sack, and 
bare kicking legs, with short stockings crumpled down 
over the tops of her shoes, had made such a pretty, 
droll picture in the firelight. Then he had tossed her 
above his head, and carried her on his shoulder to put 
her in the cart beside the colonel. Pretty Baby ! that 
was only three or four hours ago, and here she lay, 
fevered, restless, choked by this fierce, destroying 
malady. 

“ Sophia,” I whispered in terror, catching her ann, 
for she was sitting by the bed, “ tell me if you think 
she will get over it — ” 

“ You won’t deserve it if she does,” she muttered, 
shaking ofl my hand. 


CHAPTEE XIY. 


THE NEST IN THE CEDAR TREE. 

** Oh, that the year were ever vernal, 

And lovers’ youthful dreams eternal 1” 

Song of the BdL 

But all things carry the heart’s messages. 

And know it not, nor doth the heart well know, 

But Nature hath her will ; ” 

Lowell. 

I DID not take off my clothes that night, nor did 
Sophia. What made our watch the more anxious, 
was the fact that we were alone in the house. The In- 
dian woman, who was our cook and general servant, 
had many calls from her family and her tribe, and was 
continually asking leave to be away for a night or for a 
day or two. The day before, she had gone, to be 
away two nights and a day. We had felt always very 
secure and comfortable, but this sudden visitation of 
illness showed us how unsafe it was. Sophia was very 
well skilled in the care of this disease. Baby had had 
several attacks, more or less severe, during her little 
life. She knew what remedies to apply, and had the 
nerve to wait calmly for their effect. I was unnerved 
and terrified, and begged her to go and get a doctor. 
ISTone lived near us ; it would have been madness for 
her to leave tlie child and go out at midnight for one. 
And as for me, I could scarcely have brought myself tc 

[169] 


170 


THE NEST IN THE CEDAIi TEEE. 


quit the sight of the suffering little face. I obeyed her 
orders as calmly as I could, and s\ihmitted to give up 
the doctor. 

Before day-break, the child was much relieved- 
"When it was light enough, Sophia went away for the 
doctor, leaving me with many charges what to do and 
what to avoid doing. She looked back uneasily more 
than once, as if she scarcely dared trust the child with 
me alone. I couldn’t blame her ; 1 was in agonies of 
self-reproach. 

The remedies that she had applied seemed to have 
been all-sufficient. The doctor added nothing to wliat 
had been already effected. The morning was cloudy, 
and finally rainy. By noon the Baby seemed as well as 
ever, sitting up in her crib, and domineering over us 
all. I was not allowed to feel easy about her, for both 
the doctor and Sophia predicted a return of the trouble 
after night-fall. It was a wretched day. I could not eat, 
and even the vratch of the night just past failed to make 
me want to sleep. I could not bring myself to leave 
the nursery, nor to take my eyes off’ poor Baby. When 
I heard voices below, I shut the door, and sent Maidy 
to tell whoever had come that Baby was ill, and I 
couldn’t leave her. 

The rain pelted steadily all the afternoon against 
the window panes ; night gathered outside, and with 
it thickened my gloomy apprehensions. This time we 
were not alone. An Irishwoman, who lived in a lonely 
shanty a mile or two away, often came to us to supple- 
ment the Shinnecock ; she had the reputation of being 
half crazed, but we had always found her industrious 
and faithful. She was persuaded, after her day’s work 
was over, to stay with us all night, and be ready to go 


THE NEST IN THE CEDAR TREE. 


171 


for the doctor, or render any assistance outside the 
room. I do not tliink she slept much, though she was 
given a bed in the garret. I heard her moving about 
at intervals all night, and. once when I went down into 
the kitchen for hot water, I found her there, muttering 
to herself, as usual. 

“ Ann Day’s got more sense than half the people 
that think they’ve got their wits,” Sophia always said. 

The night, which had begun with such gloom and 
apprehension, wore on to midnight, and then to dawn, 
and still Baby slept peacefully. When the faint light 
of day crept into the eastern window, and I felt the 
cool moisture on her little forehead, and listened to the 
even breath that passed her parted lips, I almost cried for 
joy, and for relief from terror. Sophia had acted all 
night as if another attack were inevitable, and now the 
day had come, and she was well. I threw myself on 
the bed beside her, and, worn out by my two nights ol 
watching, fell asleep. 

When I awoke it was broad day ; Maidy was dressed, 
and eathig her breakfast by the window ; Baby was sit- 
ting up in her crib, unnumbered toys before her ; So- 
phia was tidying up the room, not in the quietest man- 
ner. 

Maidy ran to kiss me : Mamma, we have made all 
sorts of noises and you wouldn’t wake.” 

I took her in my arms and kissed her, and leaned 
over to kiss Baby. The past hours of dread seemed to 
me all like a black nightmare. Had there ever been a 
danger that I should lose one of these, my treasures ? But 
in the rebound I did not lose the consciousness of what 
I had resolved, and promised to myself ever to keep 
before me. Baby, with an unwonted tenderness, laid 


172 


THE NEST IN THE CEDAR THEE. 


her soft cheek against mine, as I leaned over the rail of 
the crib. Maidy patted Baby’s chestnut curls, and 
then smoothed my disordered hair. “ My pretty 
mamma,” she said, putting an arm around my neck. 
“ My pretty babies,” I murmured, holding them in one 
close embrace. 

“ Come to your breakfast, Maidy,” said Sophia, in 
a sharp key. ‘‘ These things can’t be kept about all 
day.” 

I kissed her again, and she slid down from the bed, and 
went submissively to her bowl of bread and milk. She 
looked back at us rather wistfully, however. Sophia 
did not quite dare to send me away, but she threw dark 
glances towards me, as I sat on the bed, leaning over 
Baby’s crib, and playing with her. I can’t say Sophia felt 
defeated ; that would be saying a harsh thing, for she 
loved Baby most devotedly. But she felt as if my 
punishment had been a petty farce, compared with my 
deserts ; I had been let off too light by fate. She had 
grown so jealous, I think she was jealous of the favor 
that she thought I seemed to have found with Heaven. 

I could afford to be magnanimous; so I got up 
soon, not to annoy her further, and went away to dress 
myself. The weather outside was dull and gray. The 
storm had subsided in the night ; the wind had dried the 
earth a good deal, but now it had fallen, and a silence 
brooded, and a sullen sky frowned overhead; it was 
anything but joyful, but my heart was so eased I did 
not feel it. 

Later in the morning, Sophia put Baby to sleep in 
her crib, turning me and Maidy out of the nursery. 
We went into my sleeping-room, which was in the rear 
of the parlor, and I sat by the window with some work, 


THE NEST IN THE CEDAR TREE. 


173 


wliile Maidy played with her dolls beside me. Pres- 
ently Sophia looked in to say that she had to go down- 
stairs to prepare something in the kitchen ; she had left 
the nursery door ajar : I could listen. The nursery was 
on the opposite side of the house, behind the dining- 
room ; to reach it, one had to cross an open sort of place, 
unceiled and rather dark. There were beams over- 
head, and the sides were boarded up ; several old wooden 
chests stood in it, in which we kept blankets and bed- 
ding. A flight of stairs descended to the kitchen from 
it. Across this dark space I made my way, once and 
again, to see if Baby were all right. Once I almost 
stumbled over Ann Day fumbling about outside 
Baby’s door; she said she had been looking for the 
clothes-pins. 

Baby slept long and peacefully. I went back to 
my sewing by the window. The air came in from 
across a leaden sea ; Maidy leaned her head down on 
the window-sill ; we were watching a nest of king-birds 
in a scraggy cedar tree that grew a few feet from the 
window. The scant foliage of the cedar was supple- 
mented by a Yirginia creeper that had grown over it, 
and hung from all its twisted limbs. In one of the 
crotches of this tree a pair of king-birds had built a 
nest and reared a brood. Two only of the young ones 
were left in the nest. We had watched them from the 
window often. While we were talking about them, I 
heard a gate opening from the farm-yard, and steps ap- 
])roaching. There was a lane which led up from Old 
Town Pond, about a mile away, which crossed our 
empty farm-yard ; not unfrequently people came that 
way, and crossed our premises. The place had been 
unoccupied so long, the villagers had got into tlie liabit. 


174 


THE NEST IN THE OEDAE TREE. 


So I did not look up or notice till Maidy called out, as 
tlie steps paused below the window, and her eyes turned 
from the tree to the ground, 

“ Oh, there’s Mr. Macnally and Ned ; mamma, mayn’t 
I go down?” 

“No, no,” I said quickly, then looked out. Mr. 
Macnally stood with his cap off, making a low salaam to 
Maidy. He had his fishing-rod over his shoulder, and 
a creel. Ned had the same indications of his calling. 
He contented himself with saying good-morning, and 
tramped away across the garden, and went towards 
home. 

“I hope Baby is better,” said Mr. Macnally, stand- 
ing below the window. 

“ Oh, she is almost well, I hope ; she’s asleep now.” 

“You had a great fright, I am afraid.” 

“Yes, indeed,” I returned, drawing a long breath. 
There was a little silence ; I was thinking what an age 
it seemed since we had driven home in the moonlight, 
and of all, inward and outward, that had passed since 
then. He was thinking — who can tell what ? He did 
not seem exactly his easy, merry self, though he tried 
hard to counterfeit it. 

“ I have brought you something, Maidy,” he said^ 
after a minute ; “ a lot of treasures from the beach that 
I picked un this morning — a baby horse-foot, two little 
crabs, and the prettiest scallop shells you ever yet be- 
held. See, they are all here in my creel. I haven’t 
caught a fish, while Ned has got a dozen.” 

“ Oh, mamma, let me go down and get them !” cried 
the child. 

“ No, no, Maidy, it is too damp for you. Mr. Mac- 
nally will leave them on the front steps, and Sophia 
will bring them to you by and by.” 


THE NEST IN THE CEDAR TREE. 


175 


Sophia will break them,” cried the child, all in 
tears. “ She threw away the last shells that he brought 
me ; she said I never should bring one of them in the 
house if she could help it.” 

A swift red overspread my face, while I tried to 
stop the child’s tears. 

“ I’m sorry,” said Macnally, coloring, I fear, a little 
too. “ I’m sorry that I suggested them. See here, 
Maidy, you can reach them if you try.” 

He swung himself up into the old cedar, and, sitting 
on a branch that brought him about on a level with the 
window, reached out his hand and gave her, one after 
another, the beloved treasures. She stretched out both 
little hands and grasped, first the crab, then the horse- 
foot, then the scallop shells, one by one, laughing, 
almost shrieking, with delight, the tears still shining oi 
her cheeks. Macnally looked eager and happy while 
he was gratifying her ; he stretched forward, steadying 
himself by one hand on a branch above, a lithe and 
graceful and almost boyish figure. 


CHAPTEK XY. 


A DAY OF RECKONING. 


“ Who is spendthrift to passion, 
Is debtor to thought.” 


1 the day drew to a close, it grew duller rather 



than brighter. I felt a longing for fresh air 
after my two days’ confinement to the house. Baby was 
as well as a baby could be, and was having her tea in 
the nursery with Maidy. There was nothing to keep 
me in the house ; so, wrapping myself in a rain cloak, 
and drawing the hood over my head, I went out into 
the twilight. I purposely avoided the road and the 
direction in which I might possibly meet any one, and 
followed the lane that led to the Old Town Pond — a 
lonely enough lane, with neither tree nor habitation on 
its whole length. A quick walk in the damp wind 
seemed to me what I needed to steady my nerves and 
shake ofi the overpowering depression that I had been 
feeling all day. 

The landscape was almost shrouded by the twilight 
and by a faint mist blowing in from sea. Walking ex- 
hilarated me a little ; I went on and on, till I reached 
the pond, and the road that led from it down to the 
sea. This road I followed, and soon stood on the sand, 
and heard, rather than saw, the waves that, under the 
mist, were rolling in upon the beach. The tide was 


[ 176 ] 


A DAY OF BECKONING. 


17T 


low ; the mnd was off the shore, and was beating down 
the surf, which broke on the sand with a sort of wail. 

It was a lonely spot, a mile from any house ; but 1 
wasn’t in a mood to feel afraid. Some fish-houses 
stood a little back from the beach ; my walk had tired 
me, and I sat down in the shelter of one of them to 
rest. The reaction from my rapid walking, the moan- 
ing of the sea, and the dreary loneliness of the spot, 
overcame me, and putting my head down on my hands, 
the tears that I had been fighting against all day came 
to my relief. Yes, the harvest was ended, the day of 
reckoning had come, and I was wakening from my long 
and happy dream. No more summer seas for me ; no 
more blue morning skies, and tender-tinted evening 
ones. Life must begin again in bitter earnest. The 
sea might well make moan for what was gone. 

As I lifted my head for a moment with a despair- 
ing sort of weariness, I heard voices : one was a wo- 
man’s, so I had no sensation of fear, but only drew back 
more in the shelter of the fish-house to escape attention. 
I listened rather anxiously, however, till they should pass, 
and I be free again. It was unexpected seeing any one 
here in so lonely a place. Presently the voices came 
nearer, and paused not four feet from me. I recog- 
nized the colonel’s voice, and Mrs. Emljm’s. It was 
not unnatural that they should be here, as they were 
both good walkers, and often went on foot several miles 
from home together when the weather was as cool as 
this ; but it was unfortunate that they should have come 
here. How could I command my voice, and not show 
traces of my not yet past emotion ? I sat still, hoping 
they would pass on and not see me. Mrs. Emlyn gave 
a long breath of fatigue, and sat down on a boat just 


178 


A DAY OF KEOKONmO. 


around tlie angle of the fish-house. We could not see 
each other for the mist and darkness, but their voices 
would have been distinct if they had whispered. 

‘‘How long have you suspected this?” said Mrs. 
Emlyn. 

“ How long ? Oh, I can’t say. Ever since Bough- 
ton was here, I think. I believe he put the idea in my 
head originally.” 

“ It’s a wretched piece of business. Why haven’t 
you given me a hint of it ?” she said, testily. 

“I should think that, being a woman, you could 
have seen it yourself.” 

“ W ell, I’m not a woman to go about, poking into 
other women’s hearts and imagining love affairs. I 
thought you knew me well enough for that. How 
should I be likely to think that a woman who couldn’t 
bear even the faintest allusion to the fact that she was 
a widow, and who didn’t seem to care for anything but 
her little children, was ready to be fallen in love with 
by the first man she met ?” 

“ One sees plenty of that sort of thing in the world.” 

“Well, thank heaven! I’m not in the world, and 
never mean to be. It’s a man’s judgment you’ve 
made, not a woman’s. I don’t believe she has an idea 
of this sort of thing.” 

“I wish to heaven she mayn’t liave, bat I’m much 
afraid I’m right. Macnally’s a taking sort of fellow ; 
we’ve shown the poor young thing scant kindness in 
throwing them so much together.” 

“ I should as soon have thought of being afraid of 
Ned. One seems about as much of a boy to me as the 
other.” 

“ All, well, you are discriminating.” 


A DAY OF EECKONINO. 


179 


“ There’s such a thing as being too discriminating, 
r, for one, believe you’ve made altogether a mistake, and 
that she’s no more idea of his infatuation than I had, 
till you told me.” 

Time will show. If she had only, now, taken it 
into her head to like Boughton. There was a capital 
marriage for her. But women’s fancies are unaccount- 
able.” 

“Hers would have been, if she had fancied him.” 

“ How if you find slie has fancied Macnally ? Can 
you account for a woman in her senses, old enough to 
be married and have children, sending ofi a man of po- 
sition and wealth, like Boughton, and setting her heart 
upon a fellow, like Macnally, about whom she knows 
absolutely nothing, except that he hasn’t twopence over 
and above his salary as tutor ?” 

“Macn ally’s a gentleman, and a much more thorough 
one than Boughton, even if I’m not discriminating. I 
can understand a woman liking him, and I can’t under- 
stand her liking the other.” 

“ Macnally’s a fascinating fellow, I suppose ; women 
always hke that sort of man. I confess I’ve a great 
liking for him myself. He’s the best tutor that we’ve 
ever had, and an agreeable companion. But there 
are some things that I acknowledge I don’t like about 
him. His want of confidence in us, first of all. What 
do we know of him? Absolutely nothing. He an- 
swered my advertisement; I was taken with him 
instantly. It’s the first time in my life I ever did such 
a thing — I don’t know whether I told you — I didn’t aSk 
%ny reference of him.” 

“ You didn’t tell me, indeed ; I should never have 


180 


A DAY OF KECKONING. 


heard the last of it if I had taken a servant in that 
way.” 

“ Well, what’s done is done. I never have been 
troubled about it till this perplexity came np, and I be- 
gan to feel some responsibility about this poor young 
widow. We’ve all been so fond of him, it was natural 
she should take him as one of us. We’ve done wrong, 
I’m afraid. I shall always blame myself.” 

Wait till you know whether there’s any harm 
done.” 

“ I can’t understand,” he went on, “ how, if things 
were all right with him, he shouldn’t occasionally speak 
to us of his people, and allude in some w^ay to the past. 
But it’s all a sealed book. I don’t believe he’s ever 
dropped a word.” 

“ I^obody’s ever asked him, maybe.” 

“ I’ve given him chances enough. Only to-day I 
took occasion to approach the subject ; I got nothing 
by it. He seemed almost irritated. I verily begin to 
think the fellow’s nothing but an adventurer. What 
do we know about him T 

“We know that for ten months he has been faith- 
ful to his work, and a gentleman, and irreproachable in 
all his conduct; he has commanded our respect and 
won our affection. Adventurer is a hard word, and I 
am glad I’m not a man, to pass so easily a judgment so 
severe.” 

And she got up and moved away. 

“ It isn’t my final judgment,” said her husband, 
following her. But you must confess things are not 
as clear as day.” 

And tlieir voices were lost to me as they walked 


A DAY OF EECKONING. 


181 


awa}^ towards home. They passed within two feet of 
where I sat, crouched down in the shadow of the hsh- 
house. I had not had the daring, nor, indeed, the 
strength, to go away after I had found they were talk- 
ing about me. I was so trembling and agitated, I could 
not have got away without being recognized, and the 
idea of making my nearness known by speaking to them 
was quite beyond my courage. It all passed so quickly, 
too. I felt numb and paralyzed. Even after they 
were gone, I felt unable to get up and go towards 
home. 

When at last I went, it was quite dark. I could 
scarcely see the fence before me when I reached the 
lane. The ground was wet with dew ; the mist came 
palpably against my face ; the stones and ruts hurt my 
feet, as I blundered along through the lane ; briars 
caught my cloak as I pushed through the narrow open- 
ing in the fence. It was all unspeakably miserable ; a 
feeling of shame sickened me ; a sense of disappoint- 
ment made a physical weight and load about my heart. 
They need not have been worried about me ; I had 
found out what they guessed, and had made my resolu- 
tion in the dark hours of Baby’s illness. But, oh ! — 
but, oh ! that they might never know — ! 

Before I got upon my feet and started on my walk 
homo, I had come to one conclusion ; the something to 
he done, that is the only solace in troubles such as this, 
was to get away from the place as soon as might be. 
I had even in my mind written the letter to the agent 
about the rooms we wanted ; I had decided the num- 
ber of days it would take to hear from him, to dis- 
pose of the packing, to prepare the children’s clothes. 
If it hadn’t been for the stimulus of this, I don’t quite 


182 


A. DAY OF RECKONING. 


know how I should have got back along the length of 
that dark lane. 

When I entered the house I left my damp cloak in 
the kitchen, and went up and tried to warm myself at 
the parlor fire. The Shinnecock, now returned to her 
duty, brought up a tray of tea, and set it for me on a 
little table, near the fire. The cliildren had gone to bed ; 
I heard Sophia singing to Baby through the open nur- 
sery door. I didn’t heed my tea, which stood un- 
touched, steaming away its fragrant cheer, but pulled 
out my portfolio, and sat down by the light to write 
the letter to the agent for the rooms. I had not fin- 
ished it when I heard Macnally’s quick, light step on 
the balcony, outside, and a knock, though the doors 
were open. I said, come in, and he entered with a 
brighter, more eager look than he had had in the morn- 
ing. In his hand he carried quite a package of let- 
ters. 

I’m sorry,” he began. “ I don’t think the pinafore 
letter has arrived, but here is your paper. The colonel 
has got quite a budget he added, his face almost im- 
perceptibly losing its brightness. Something that he 
had meant to say, he had not said. His quick eye, no 
doubt, had taken in, at a glance, that there was some 
trouble ; the neglected tea, my unhappy face, the care- 
less condition of my hair and dress ; and, worse than all, 
the inevitable constraint of my manner. 

“ You were writing, and I disturbed you,” he said, 
drawing back a step or two. 

Oh, no,” I returned, with a changing color that 
the words did not call for. ‘‘ I have nearly finished my 
letter ; it can’t go till to-morrow morning.” 

“ Is it about the pinafore ? Or has something else 


A DAY OF RECKONING. 


183 


turned up, of interest enough in life, to write a letter 
for ? ” he said, with a little smile, emboldened, per 
haps, by the fluctuations of my color. My face must 
have showed that he had unwittingly said something that 
gave me a sharp pain, for he added quickly, and in a 
voice very tender with feeling, 

“ I am afraid Baby is worse. I am afraid you think 
me very careless, but indeed I hoped that was all over, 
and she was really well.’’ 

“ Baby is well,” I replied, recovering self-possession. 
“ I really am quite over my worry about her. I sup- 
pose I feel a little nervous and unsettled still, but a 
night’s rest will put that all right, no doubt.” 

“ I must not keep you, then,” he said, uncomfort- 
ably, looking at his watch. “ It is past nine o’clock, 
and you have been awake two nights.” 

He pushed away the chair before him, refusing to 
sit down ; a stick rolled forward on the andirons, and 
he stooped over and put it in its place ; he stood for 
a moment, resting his liand on the mantelpiece. 

“ I had something to say to you,” he said, with his 
face turned to the Are, speaking with a little constraint. 

But perhaps I’d — I’d better put it ofl till you have 
more time to listen.” 

I didn't answer; it seemed to me he must have 
heard the beating of my heart. But he heard nothing, 
X suppose, and the silence must have sent a chill 
through him. He did not even turn and look towards 
me, or he would have seen an agitation that, perhaps, 
would have seemed less cold. At last, he said, in a 
husky sort of voice : 

“ I was speaking to you the other night about expect- 
ing letters. Those I had looked for have arrived to- 


184 


A DAT OF BECKONING. 


night. There was one of them I wanted to — to tell you 
about — and show you. "W ould you care to see it 

As he said this he lifted his head suddenly and bent 
on me a look that seemed to devour me with its inten- 
sity. I had a feeling of terror. I looked this way and 
that. I wanted to escape. I believe I gave a kind of 
gasp, and then bent down my head over the portfolio 
which I still held in my hand. 

“ I will not force it upon you,” he said, in an un- 
steady voice, as he crushed the letter in his hand. “ I 
will not force anytliing upon you.” 

And when I raised my head again, and looked up, 
he was gone. 


CHAPTER XYI. 


THE SEA MAKES MOAN. 


“ Therefore I crave for scenes which might 
My fettered thoughts unbind, 

And where the elements might be 
Like scapegoats to my mind.” 

Faber. 

N aomi stood at the nursery door knocking the 
next morning. 

“ May I come in?” she said, as Maidy, stretching up 
to the latch, opened it a little way. 

I gave assent with less good-will than I had ever 
done before to my pretty little neighbor. I was taking 
care of the children while Sophia ate her breakfast and 
did many things about the house before coming to re- 
lieve me. She insisted that Baby must still be kept in 
her room, though I felt certain that the necessity was 
past. The weather was quite settled now : the house 
was intolerable. I was so irritable that I could scarcely 
speak peaceably to the little emissary from Happy-go- 
lucky, and the children’s many demands upon me nearly 
drove me wild. Another night of sleeplessness had put 
my nerves almost beyond control. I feared Haomi’s 
eyes, and her dear little questioning tongue. If she 
had only known it, I loved her better than ever then, 
as a part of my lost and ended summer, but still I was 
afraid of her. Then passed a few moments of security, 

[ 185 ] 


186 


THE SEA MAKES MOAN. 


while she kissed and caressed Baby, whom she had not 
before been permitted to see since her illness. She gave 
her a doll she had dressed for her, and to Maidy, a little 
picture she had painted, that no feelings might be hurt. 
Then she came up beside me, and laid her hand on my 
chair. 

“We’ve missed you so,” she said, stooping down 
and giving me a kiss. “ We’ve had dismal times since 
Baby has been sick, and it’s worse than ever now, for 
Mr. Macnally went away this morning, to be gone 
almost a week, I think. It’s nice to have holiday, of 
course, and Ned’s got all sorts of plans for having a 
good time. But it’s not so nice at home without Mr. 
Macnally. He’s always saying something makes you 
laugh. Don’t you think he’s very funny And some- 
how uncle doesn’t seem in a good humor with any one 
this morning ; he’s scolded all the men since breakfast, 
and I think said something cross to Aunt Penelope, 
though I don’t know what. Aunt Penelope often says 
things to him, and he never seems to mind ; but it’s 
something new for him to speak to her in that way — 
don’t you think it is ?” 

“ I’m sure I don’t know, Naomi, how should I ? 
And I don’t think your aunt would like you to talk 
about these things to me.” 

“ You’re just like one of us,” said Naomi, caress- 
ingly. “ I feel as if you were my cousin, or something. 
Aren’t you coming down to dinner to-day.” 

“ Oh, dear, no. I mean, that is, I can’t leave Baby 
for a great while yet. Poor little girl, she’ll have to be 
looked after very carefully now, you know.” 

“Can’t Maidy come? It’s awful lonesome; you 
don’t know.” 


THE SEA MAKES MOAH. 


187 


We compromised on Maidj, and I was left alone. 

'No answer came from the house-agent. I would 
not tell Sophia that 1 had written till I had certain 
plans to offer. I packed quietly many of my own 
things, which would not attract her attention. I spent 
diligent hours over the children’s clothes. I paid lit- 
tle bills about the neighborhood ; if I could not have 
been busy, 1 should have been very much more un- 
happy than I was. I had fortunately been out, once 
or twice, when the colonel and his wife called, and 
Baby’s illness answered for excuse for my not going 
down to Happy-go-lucky. 

It was the fourth night after Haomi had brought 
her little budget of home news. I longed for the sea ; 
my head ached ; and it seemed to me to stand on the 
sands and feel the wind blow, would cool and cure 
me. After the children were asleep, therefore, I wrap- 
ped myself up and went out. It was twilight ; a gray, 
faint mist hung between heaven and earth, and hid 
the stars. There was a “ moist, whistling wind.” 
When I reached the shore I stood still, feeling it blow 
upon my face ; but it did not seem to cool the fever in 
my blood. The waves rolled in monotonously at my 
feet ; but the sound did not soothe me. There was no 
one on the lonely beach ; but the solitude did not help 
me, and, restless and disappointed, I turned back. 

I could see the road a good way before me ; the 
white dust of the well-worn track, however, was all I 
could see, at any distance. The gray fences and the 
little spindling trees, set here and there along the road- 
side, were all invisible in the twilight. It was a good 
half mile from the beach to the cottage. 

On my right, after I had walked quarter of a mile, 


188 


THE SEA MAKES MOAN. 


the road turned off to Happy-go-lucky. Its windows 
were shining with hospitable lights. Ah, dear, bright 
lights of Happy-go-lucky ! What feelings they stirred 
in me ! I could not hope to see them many times more. 
The best that I could hope was, that, by and bye, I 
might come to remember them with love and gratitude, 
and not feel bitter and ashamed. I leaned against the 
fence for a moment, looking at them, and then took up 
my way towards home, walking, not in the road, but in 
a narrow, faintly-beaten path close by the fence. 

Some sort of a sound, not Tvave, and not wind, 
reached my ear, and I began to feel afraid, and hurried 
forward. I don’t know what I was afraid of ; it was a 
sudden agitation, the result of my ill-used nerves, no 
doubt. Along the path, coming rapidly near me, I 
saw a figure, dimly. I stopped in a sort of panic, ir- 
resolute which way to fiy. Before I had time to move 
out of the way, the man, for, it was a man, confronted 
me. The dim light, my dark dress, and his own pre- 
occupation, made it as unexpected to him. We both 
gave a start, I a little involuntary cry of fright. 

“ I beg your pardon,” he said, not knowing me, and 
stepped aside. I recognized the voice of Mr. Macnally. 
It was not remarkable that he didn’t know me. I had 
on a long gray cloak, with the hood drawn over my 
head, which, I am sure, he had never seen me wear 
before. 

“ I was frightened, for I didn’t know you,” I said, 
hurriedly. 

“ You ! ” he cried, with a start. 

“ I’m glad you’ve come back,” I said, not knowing 
exactly what I said or did. “ I — I — thought you 


THE SEA MAKES MOAN. 


189 


weren’t coming back for a good many more days yet — 
and I put out my hand. 

He caught it and held it for a moment. W e stood so 
near together I could feel the strong pulsation of his 
heart. lie coul^ not speak, nor could I. I withdrew 
iny hand, remembering, as I did it, that it was the first 
time that he had ever touched it, except sometimes, 
perhaps, in getting in or out of the carriage, and very 
rarely then. He had taken very little advantage of our 
constant intimacy — this adventurer. He dropped my 
hand, and turning walked beside me. 

“ Are you just come from the train ?” I said, at last. 
He assented. “ Haomi told me you were going to be 
away a week.” 

“ I meant to stay longer ; forever, if I had the cour- 
age, but I hadn’t.” He spoke in a quick, low voice, but 
perfectly distinct. “ I went away in a great fury with 
myself and you, like a hot-blooded Irishman, as I have 
the ill-luck to be. Since I’ve been away, I have had a 
thousand thoughts. Heavens ! If one could stop think- 
ing ! The other night — were you only sorry for me, 
and only angry that I dared to want to speak to you ? 
I thought I saw something else in your face, and I’ve 
come back to ask you what it was. I hope you won’t 
be insincere. It isn’t like you to be insincere. You 
won’t say I haven’t any right to ask ? Eemember, I am 
very unhappy. Tell me if there was anything that 
would give me any right to hope 

“ ISTo,” I said steadily, after a moment. “ I cannot 
see that there was anything.” 

“Eemember that this is life and death,” he said, 
standing still. 


190 


THE SEA MAKES MOAN. 


I was SO near the fence that I put my hand out on 
the rail, and supported myself, as I stood trembling. 

“It is life and death to me. You will be sincere. 
How can it be that — that you haven’t any feeling for 
me? You have liked me, I know that well enough. 
You have been glad when I came, sorry when I went 
away. You have found it dull without me. We read 
each other’s thoughts, we know each other’s fancies, we 
choose the same path to walk in. Is that only liking ? 
Or what is the great guK that is fixed between the two ? 
Is lildng one thing and loving quite another ? I don’t 
ask you to love me with the vehemence of my love for 
you. It isn’t in your nature, it wouldn’t be fit. But I 
ask you to look well into your heart, and to be sure that 
you are right in sending me away to such a dark and 
miserable loneliness. Haven’t you built up some mor- 
bid and unreal obstacle ? Isn’t it the past that you are 
trying to foist upon the present? Don’t think me 
harsh. I believe that you are deceiving yourself. If 
I thought you knew your heart and could give an honest 
answer, I would go away in silence and take my fate 
like a man. But it tortures me, it unnerves me, it 
makes ruin of all my resolutions, to feel I am fighting 
with shadows ; that it is a dead hand draws the circle 
into which I may not step.” 

“ It is not that,” I said steadily ; “ you are mistaken. 
I would tell you, if it were as you believe.” 

“ Then what is it ?” he cried passionately. “ I have 
been humble enough, and reverent in all my thoughts 
of you, and patient in waiting for the feelings that I 
trusted to inspire. I never believed that I could speak 
in this way to you, but the fire has burned its way out, 
and you must let me speak. Give me my answer and 


THE SEA MAKES MOAN. 


191 


I will go away. Tell me, as before Heaven, what is it 
stands between ns 

‘‘ Why is it necessary for me to say more than I bare 
said already?” 

“ Why ? Because, if you don’t, I shall never believe 
in any one again. I shall feel that you have been in- 
sincere while I have been believing you divinely true 
and clear. It will have been a deception that will do 
me deadly hann.” 

“ Don’t talk about deception. What have you been 
making me believe ? Why did you not tell me before 
what — what you have told me now ?” 

“ Because I waited till you should be prepared to 
hear it. But my secret outgrew my strength to hold 
it. Heaven help me ! If I had but kept it !” 

I made a movement to go on, but with a gesture he 
prevented me. The wind was strong and beat my 
dress and cloak against the fence and held them, and I 
leaned back upon this rough support. My limbs 
were so weak, I hardly think I could have stood with- 
out it. 

“ If I had waited,” he said, “ till you had grown 
more accustomed to the thought and sight of me — if 
I had given your prejudices, your resolutions, time 
to weaken and decay — I will wait now. It shall be 
as if I had not spoken ; things shall go on as they 
were before. You will forget this folly, won’t you ? 
You must not give me my answer. I don’t want it. 
You shall only give me hope by being silent. See ! 
the worst is past. I begin to live again. We will be 
friends ; just the sort of friends we were before. It 
shall not be your fault if I deceive myself. I only ask 
reprieve.’’ 


192 


THE BEA MAKES MOAK. 


I shoo'k my head. “ You know that is impossible. 
Don’t talk of what can never be. This is the very 
end. We — you, I mean — must make the best of it.” 

“ Why I — why 1 alone ?” he said, eagerly catching 
at my altered sentence. “ Oh, if you would but speak, 
if you would but tell me this one truth — is it I alone 
who suffer ? DonH you care for me ? How can it be ; 
how can I have been so deceived ? I have lived on this 
one strong hope always, since I knew my feelings to- 
wards you. I have known there would be a hundred 
obstacles, but never this. If you had had a troop of 
suitors I should not have feared them. When that 
padded, pompous creature came to see he wanted you, 
I never had a thought of jealousy. I never counted 
his money and his good position worth a thought. I 
knew you would abhor him. 1 felt sure, sure of your 
heart when you came to know it. And now you say 
you know it — ” 

The wind was blowing stronger every minute. 

“ I am cold — ^let us go home,” I said, faintly. 

“ One thing — one word more, and this is ended. 
If I could be so duped by my own desires, if I could 
be so at fault in all my judgments — but no, everything 
reels ! I cannot bring myself to believe you different 
from what I have believed you. I won’t ask you the 
question that I meant to. I would rather believe you true 
and simple, and all you have been in my imagination, 
than have you for my own, and know that I had been 
mistaken.” 

“If you mean,” I said, incoherently, “to ask 
whether 1 care — whether there is any one else — ” 

“Well?” he said, shai’ply, drawing his breath 
quickly, as I paused. 


THE SEA MAKES MOAN. 193 

“There isn’t anything like that,” I said. “Ton 
might have known there wasn’t.” 

“ Then, what is there ?” he cried, in a pleading 
voice. “ What is there that makes you treat me so ? 
What is there that makes you forbid me to wait, and 
try, and hope a little longer ? What is there that has 
changed your nature so ? So good and gentle always, 
so afraid of making other people suffer. How can you 
— kill me — in this way ? Have you reflected ; do you 
know what you are doing ?” 

“ Yes, I know,” I cried, putting my hands before 
my face. “ It doesn’t do any good to be sorry.” 

“Why doesn’t it do any good to be sorry?” he 
murmured, bending towards me. “Listen to your 
heart this time. It will tell you true.” 

I lifted my head, and through the dusk his eyes 
shone like stars. 

“ There is no use,” I said. “ I cannot give you any 
other answer. If you waited a hundred years, it would 
be just the same.” 

He gave me a long, despairing look. “ Then God 
in His mercy help me !” he said, putting his head down 
on his folded arms upon the rail beside me. How 
long we stood there I don’t know ; the wind swept by 
with a moaning sound, now lifting a little the gray, 
dusky mist, now gathering it thicker round us. I 
heard steps approaching, and the rough voices of men, 

“ Quick,” I said, “ let us go, some people are com- 
ing ; I’m afraid of them.” 

He did not seem to hear me, and did not move at 
all. I had to repeat what I had said, and then to touch 
his arm, before he lifted his head, and understood me. 
By this time, the men, a party of sailors, lad passed 


194 


THE SEA MAKES MOAN. 


along. They were on the opposite side of the road ; 
they did not seem to notice ns. Their voices grew 
faint in the distance, as I walked slowly on along the 
path ; Macnally walking silently and mechanically be- 
side me. We were not very far from home ; in a few 
minutes we reached the gate. He only went with me 
to the foot of the balcony steps. The kitchen windows 
were open, and a strong light came out from them 
across the path ; as it shone for an instant on his face, 
I saw that it was white and very haggard. I don’t 
know whether he said anything as we parted ; I to go 
up the steps, and he to go out of the gate again. 

When I got into the little parlor I found it cold 
and dark ; the fire had gone out ; the lamp had not 
been lighted. I shivered, and lay down on the sofa. I 
liad such a feeling of physical fatigue and languor, that 
I could only think of the bliss of dying, and going to 
sleep forever. It seemed impossible even to imagine 
suffering anything more. After a few moments, 
Sophia came in, bringing the lamp. I knew it was 
overwhelming curiosity that brought her, and not a caro 
for my comfort. She had, no doubt, seen Macnally’s 
haggard face, as he passed the kitchen window. When 
she saw me lying white and faint on the sofa, she came 
near me, with a cold, hard look. 

“You have been out late,” she said, “and you 
have missed a visitor. The young lad from the Em- 
lyns came and brought you a letter from the office. 
And his teacher called a little a ^er, cn his way, I should 
think, from the cars.” 

“ Yes, I met him.” 

“ I supposed you did. I know he came home with 
you now.” 


THE SEA MAKES MOAN. 


195 


I didn’t answer, only lay with my eyes shut. Her 
wrath smouldered awhile, in these trivial explanations, 
and then burst forth unstifled. 

“I’ve been wanting to say something to you for 
some time — ” 

“ Don’t say it now, Sophia, I don’t feel well enough 
to talk.” 

“You’ve felt well enough to talk, for the last half 
hour or over, with that man that’s just gone out from 
here. You can hear me, I think, a little while at least. 
I'll do the talking, and you can do the listening. I’ve 
lived with your people ever since I was a little girl : it 
doesn’t become me to say what I’ve done for you and 
for your children. If your husband had lived, I should 
never have thought of giving up the children, no matter 
what had happened. I am sure it will cost me hard to 
leave them that I have brought up. They are like my 
own to me. But if they were my own, they would not 
keep me, if I once made up my mind to go. You may 
make what arrangements you think best for yom-self 
and for the children. I have made up my mind to one 
thing, either that man stops coming to this house, or I 
go out of it. I will mind your children and do my duty 
by the house as I have always done, for their sakes, and 
for their poor dead father’s, if this thing is put a stop 
to, here and now. You can choose your choice. But 
I cannot, and I will not, see those children that I have 
nursed so long brought to disgrace and shame by a 
heartless mother. I will not see it, I say. I will go 
away and hide myself and try to forget it all. It is 
enough that this thing is the talk of all the village. If 
they were little boys it would not be half so bad ; but 


196 


THE SEA MAKES MOAH. 


girls that’s got to grow up shadowed by their mother’s 
reputation !” 

“ Sophia !” 

“Yes; I mean exactly what I say. It makes my 
flesh creep when I think of their poor father, only 
three years in his grave, poor fellow ! Wlien I think of 
what he was, and what he would have been to them, 
and then think of what’s in store for them. Poor 
babies, they would be better in their cofiins, where they 
would have been, if you had liad the care of them. A 
woman that can forget a man like ihat^ and take up 
with such a one as this^ what right has she to have the 
care of children? A wild Irishman, turning somer- 
saults in the village streets, shouting his songs and non- 
sense in the ears of decent, quiet people, that’s a man 
for a lady to take up with. Folks say they don’t know 
even what his name is ; it’s handy to have two or three, 
sometimes, I’ve heard. He’s likely to have need of all 
he’s got. The Emlyns will be sick of him, perhaps, 
sometime. He gets a little money now from teaching, 
but where’ll the next bit come from, I should like to 
know. I suppose he thinks he knows, and that he’s 
sure of a shelter and a crust if he plays a good sharp 
game, down here. But remember, now’s your time to 
choose. I’ll only wait another day to have this matter 
settled, and know exactly what you have made up your 
mind to do. For the children’s sake I’U stay, if you 
break with him entirely ; but for no earthly sake will I 
stay if he comes in the house again.” I did not attempt 
to answer her, but got up, and almost staggered towards 
the door. 

“Are you not going to answer me?” she said, 
fiercely. “ Maybe you’ll repent it if you don’t.” 


THE SEA MAKES MOAN. 


197 


I shut the door of my room, and left her talking 
still. The foul and muddy flood seemed to have 
washed out everything pure and lovely in life. I 
think, I simply longed that moment to die, and be 
hidden from all human sight. 


CHAPTEH XVII. 


IN THE BEOODING DAKKNESS. 

“ Did heaven look on, 

And would not take their part ?” 

Macbeth, 

“ O God I could I so close my mind, 

And clasp it with a clasp I” 

Eugene Aram, 

^T^HE next morning Xaomi’s pretty face appeared at 
-L the nursery door again, but this time disfigured 
with scarcely dried tears. She beckoned me to come 
out, and had scarcely a word for her little playmates. 
I put down Maidy, who was in my lap, and followed 
her into the parlor. She threw herself into my arms, 
and began to cry. 

“ Mr. Macnally is going away to-night,” she said, 
between her sobs, “ never to come back again. What 
can make him go ? Something is the matter. Uncle 
is all upset about it, and Aunt Penelope sent me out of 
the room, and won’t talk to me. ISTed, even, feels sorry 
that he’s going. What shall we do without him ? I 
like him better than anybody I can think of. Oh, why, 
vhy does he have to go away ?” 

Why does he say he has to go ?” I asked, sitting 
down and drawing her down beside me. 

“I don’t know what he says to uncle. I know 
uncle thinks he ought not to go, and leave us, before 
[ 198 ] 


IN THE BROODING DARKNESS. 


199 


the year is out. Aunt Penelope answers short, and 
won’t give me any satisfaction. And he — oh ! — he looks 
60 dreadfully. It makes me think of Shamus O’Brien, 
‘ For his face is as pale as the face of the dead.’ He’s 
the handsomest, and the best, and the kindest ! Oh, 
what will it be at home without him ? Ned quarrel- 
ling all the time, and nobody to stop him — and no 
jokes, and no fun — and nobody to take my part ! I 
wish we could go to the city right away. I don’t want 
to stay here any longer. Did you know he was going 
away to-night ?” 

“ No, Naomi, I didn’t.” 

“ I wonder why he didn’t tell you. Did you know 
he meant to go at all ?” 

“ I knew he might go. I didn’t know when he’d 
go.” 

“ Has he heard any bad news from home, I wonder ? 
I think it’s so hard. Aunt Penelope won’t tell me. They 
treat me like a child. As if I couldn’t be trusted to 
know such a thing as that. I care more than any of 
them, and yet they act as if it wasn’t any interest to 
me. He’s all packed up — he’s telegraphed for passage 
on the steamer that sails to-morrow. He’s given Ned 
his gun, and me some books. He’s just as nice as ever. 
He tries to talk the same and be like himself, but it 
isn’t natural, and his face is so pale, and his eyes so hol- 
low. The chambermaid says he didn’t go to bed at all, 
but just walked about his room all night. At break- 
fast it was horrid. He couldn’t eat anything, though 
he took lots of things on his plate. He tried to make 
believe he did. But all he took was a cup of coffee, 
strong enough to kill him. Aunt Penelope made it for 
him so, I guess, because she saw he couldn’t touch his 


200 


IN THE BEOODING DARKNESS. 


breakfast. She didn’t even try to talk, except to stop 
me if I said anything, good or bad, to anybody. Oh, it 
was a horrid breakfast — but to-morrow will be worse.” 

And poor Naomi hid her face in my lap, and cried 
abandonedly. 

‘‘ Don’t cry, Naomi. You know people can’t always 
be together. When you get older you’ll be used to 
partings." 

“I thought you’d feel badly too, you’ve always 
seeemed to like him so.” 

“ I do feel sorry, ever so sorry. But you know I’m 
older than you, and I’ve said good-bye to so many 
people.” 

“ Then I don’t want to get older, if I’m going to feel 
that way about things. I could say good-bye to a hun- 
dred thousand people, but it wouldn’t make me used to 
saying good-bye to him. If he was going away happy, 
and all that, it would be bad enough. But to know 
he’s in trouble — and not to know what the matter is 1 
And to keep thinking all the time it may get worse, 
and not to know for certain anything about him ! I 
didn’t think you’d be that way. I thought you’d feel 
like me about it, he was such friends with you. Why, 
that ridiculous old candlestick you gave him with the 
ribbon around it on his birthday, he packed it up the 
very first thing, for I went up to his room to take him 
some things that the laundress had forgotten, and he 
was packing it into a box all with tissue paper around 
‘t. And Maidy’s little Cinderella was in the tray of his 
trunk. Poor Maidy ! She won’t have him to carry her 
on his shoulder any more. But she’ll soon get over it, 
I suppose, she is so little.” 

I stroked Naomi’s yellow-brown hair, and would 


IN THE BROODING DARKNESS. 


201 


have smiled, if I had had the heart. I petted and com- 
forted her as well as I could, and she soon went home 
to hang around her tutor’s closed door, to be snubbed 
by her aunt, snarled at by Ned, ignored by her uncle, 
and to have her honest grief most entirely disregarded. 

The day passed heavily enough with me. After 
Naomi’s visit, nobody at all came near me. I felt 
very sure he would not go away without seeing me. 
It seemed to me probable he would come the last thing 
before he went away. 

The train went at nine fifteen. At eight o’clock he 
had not come. It was a warm, close night, not a breath 
of wind stirring. All the parlor windows were open, 
and the doors. It was not hot — it never was hot at 
South Berwick — but there was to-night a quality in the 
air that made it abominable : it weighed you down like 
lead ; it oppressed you like a trouble : you opened a win- 
dow and no freshness entered ; you fanned yourself, and 
were not the better. I sat down by the parlor lamp 
awhile, then walked restlessly about the room, and then 
went from one room to another, trying to occupy my- 
self, but listening intently all the time. All the doors 
and windows were open ; it seemed as if everything 
were laid under a spell, not to be banging and flutter- 
ing in the usual gale. 

Sophia had taken her work, and was sitting in the 
dining-room by a small shaded lamp. She often sat 
there in the evening, to be near the children. The 
dining-room, as I have said, was next the nursery, and 
communicated with it by a door. This door was shut, 
however, to keep out the noise and light. Sophia trusted 
to her sharp ears to hear them through the hall which 
led into the sort of unfinished garret into which the 


202 


m THE BROODING DARKNESS. 


nurseiy opened. The parlor and my sleeping-room 
were -on the other side of the hall, all opening, in the 
same way, on this unceiled, ill-lighted space. Stairs 
to the attic led up from it, through a door ; stairs from 
the kitchen led up to it from below. I should think it 
was about sixteen feet square. You could touch the 
beams by slightly lifting your hand ; they were cob- 
webby and dusty, notwithstanding Sophia ; across the 
floor she had laid strips of rag carpet from the stairs to 
the different doors, that the children might not be roused 
by steps on the bare floor. 

I stood for a moment by the open window of my 
room, looking out into the starless night ; then crossed 
this chamber, and went softly into the nursery. A 
shaded lamp was burning in one corner ; the door was 
open, and the window. The room was all in the scru- 
pulous order in which Sophia always left it when her 
day’s work was done, and her nurslings were asleep. 
Here lay Maidy’s little shoes, beside the chair on which 
lay her folded clothes ; there Baby’s ; there the bath-tub, 
with its sponges and towels on the rack beside it, the 
soap and powder box and brushes on their little table, 
close at hand. Before the unlighted stove hung the bath- 
ing blankets, and two little wrappers. There was not a 
thing out of place ; all told the story of monotonous 
nursery life. That was the life that lay before me; 
that was what was to satisfy my soul henceforth. I 
took the lamp in my hand, and went and stood below 
the two little cribs, where the light fell upon the two 
children in their peaceful sleep. I gazed long and 
steadfastly. Yes, it ought to satisfy me ; it should 
satisfy me. I thought of the agony that wrung me 


m THE BROODING DARKNESS. 


203 


when only a few nights before I had seen Baby lying 
in that same crib, so ill. Was I the same woman? 

I put back the lamp, and went and stood between 
the two cribs, and bent first over one and then over the 
other. Yes, I loved them best ; it was enough ; I was 
satisfied. Baby lay with one hand under her cheek, the 
other grasping a little battered fleecy lamb, with a faded 
ribbon on its neck, and a tiny tinkling bell, with which 
she always went to sleep. Her soft chestnut curls were 
moist on her forehead, as was the little band of em- 
broidery on the nightgown round her throat. With a 
tender care, I turned back one of the light coverings 
of her crib, and stooped to kiss her pretty, pretty, lit- 
tle hand. Maidy gave a sigh and turned over on her 
pillow ; “ Dear little Maidy,” I thought, gazing down 
at her sweet face, as she lay with her arms crossed on 
her breast, and her eyelashes on her cheek ; “ you and 
I will be companions, and live together always. Baby 
will go away and marry. You and I must love each 
other very much ; there is a long road before us.” I 
caressed her fair curls, and spread them out upon the 
pillow, and lifted one to my lips and kissed it. I 
thought of the time when she was a tiny infant, and 
when her proud young father first held her in his 
arms. “ Dear Arnold,” I said, in a whisper, “brother 
for all eternity ; I will be faithful to your children.” 
Then I knelt down, with bowed head, between my two 
babies, and commended them to God’s gracious care 
and keeping; and for myself I asked fortitude and 
patience. 

With a heavy heart I got up and walked to the 
open window, through which the stagnant air crept in. 
For a moment I had forgotten the outside world, while 


204 


IN THE BROODING DARKNESS. 


1 had been on my knees beside the children ; now 1 
heard a wagon pass, and it recalled me to the present, 
and I went restlessly out of the room. It could hot be 
that he would go without seeing me again. I walked 
up and down the parlor, and up and down the balcony, 
and then sat down by the lamp with a sort of resolution 
that I would not get up again. It was now nearly half 
past eight ; I might as well face it, the wheels I had 
heard were his. He was going without seeing me — 
perhaps it was best. What good could come of saying 
good-bye ; what solace could there be in half an hour 
out of a life-time? Separation might as well begin 
now, as at nine o’clock. I must begin to school myself ; 
I would not get up, I would not listen. I would read, 
and turn my thoughts away. I heard the gate-latch 
lifted, and a step outside. I did not raise my eyes till 
some one stood in the door. It was Macnally. I got 
up, and said : 

“ Naomi told me you were going to-night. I began 
to think you weren’t coming to say good-bye to me.” 

“ Oh, no,” he said, ‘‘ Ned has gone on to the train 
with my luggage, and will get the checks. I have — 
haK an hour.” 

And he took out his watch. 

“ You can’t walk it in fifteen minutes,” I said. 

“ Easily, in ten,” he returned, with a faint smile. 
‘‘ But don’t be uneasy. I shan’t get left, or, if I do, I 
can catch my steamer by the early train to-morrow. 
It’s a well-bred steamer, and doesn’t sail till three 
o’clock.” 

“ Then, if you have so much time you might sit 
down, I think. Here is my very nicest chair. You 
look as if you were dreadfully tired.” 


m THE BROODING DARKNESS. 


205 


“ Do I he said, passing his hand over his forehead 
RS he sat down. ‘‘ I don’t exactly know what I am to- 
night.” 

‘‘ It is so close,” I said, moving restlessly my fan. 
‘‘We haven’t had such a night this Summer.” 

“ 1^0 , 1 am sure of that,” he returned, with an almost 
imperceptible gasp. 

“ It suffocates one,” I went on. “ And in Septem- 
ber, too, when one doesn’t look for suffocation.” 

Rex came pattering in at this moment, having heard 
a friend’s voice. He wagged his tail gently and walked 
across the room and put his paws on Mr. Macnally’s 
lap. 

“Poor Rex, poor fellow,” said he, stooping down 
and patting him. But Rex could not be satisfied with 
this. He sprang up on his knees, and put his nose in 
his face. 

“ That’s an unusual attention, old fellow,” he said, 
in rather a low voice, as he held him off. “ You know 
I’m going away, I see.” 

“ Don’t let him trouble you,” I said, getting up and 
going to take him from him. “You’re so tired. You 
must not be bothered.” 

“ I shall have time enough to rest on the steamer,” 
he answered, leaning back in his chair, a sickly white- 
ness passing over his face as for an instant he closed his 
eyes. 

“ You are ill,” I said, standing before him with the 
dog under my arm. “ What shall I get you? I wish 
you didn’t have to go.” 

“ I wish to Heaven I didn’t !” he cried, with a bitter 
little laugh, rousing himself and lifting his head. “ I 
am not ill ; you must not worry. I am, as you say, aw- 


206 


m THE BROODING DARKNESS. 


fully tired ; just fagged out. It will pass. You mustn’t 
worry.” I ran to the dining-room and got a glass of 
wine, braving Sophia, who sat there sewing. When I 
came back he was standing up. 

‘‘ You must drink it,” I said, in an agitated way, 
standing before him. ‘‘Won’t you? It may do you 
good.” 

He took the glass from my hand, and drank off the 
wine. 

“ How sit down and rest,” I said, wheeling the chair 
close up to the table and shading the light where he sat 
down. “You have twenty-five minutes. You can rest 
a good deal. Hex, lie down, lie down, sir.” 

Hex lay down at his feet, with his head on the floor, 
his black eyes fixed with a keen attention on his face. 
He wagged his tail occasionally, but made no other 
movement. There was a silence of a moment or so. 

“ You are better ?” I asked, bringing a light chair 
and sitting down near him beside the table. 

“ Oh, yes,” he said. “ I am better. I asked you 
not to worry about that.” 

“ The voyage may do you good, and the change. I 
think it often is the best thing. And you’ll let us know 
all about it ; you’ll write — to — some of us.” 

“ I just promised Haomi.” 

“ Be sure you write soon, just as soon as ever you 
are landed. We shall want to know.” 

Then I opened my portfolio, lying on the table, and 
said, “ Here’s a photograph I got out for you this morn- 
ing. I thought perhaps you’d like to have it. It was 
taken in the Spring. It’s better of me than of the 
children. Baby wouldn’t sit still, as might have been 
expected, but Maidy’s is pretty good. And on the out- 


■ IN THE BROODING DARKNESS. 207 . 

side I have written an address which will always reach 
me — some time when I mightn’t be near the Emlyns — 
at any rate, I pnt it down.” 

He took the little picture and leaned over it to look 
at it by the light. An expression of great pain passed 
over his face. I faltered, “ I thought you’d like to 
have it, though it isn’t very good.” 

“ I shall like to have it one of these days, no doubt ; 
but I don’t like to have it now. It is so little for a 
man to have when he wants — everything.” 

He leaned down on the table with a sort of groan, 
and put his hands before his face. 

“ I’m sorry I gave it to you,” I said, almost crying. 
“ I don’t seem to know how to do the right thing. I 
wish you wouldn’t — feel so — ” 

“Forgive me,” he said, Hf ting his head, and putting 
the picture in its envelope in the pocket of his coat 
without looking at it again. “ Forgive me ; I know 
this is unmanly, and I don’t blame you for reproaching 
me. Yes — as you say — the voyage and all that sort of 
thing is apt to do one good. And you — when shall you 
go away from here ?” 

“ Oh, very soon, I hope ; as soon as ever we can go 
Next week perhaps. I have begun to pack.” 

“ And you will be — in the city after this ?” 

“ I suppose so, I don’t know. It all depends upon 
the children. If they keep well, we might as well stay 
there as anywhere ; but if they’re not as strong, I’ve 
sometimes thought it would be better for us to have 
some little place in the conntry where we might live all 
the year.” 

Involuntarily I looked up at the clock, and his eyes 
followed mine. “ I liave ten minutes more,” he said. 


208 


m THE BROODING DARKNESS. 


with a bitter smile for a moment on his lips “ Don’t 
begrudge them to me. I have no doubt I shall live 
forty-five years more, at least ; we’re a long-lived family. 
Nothing ever kills us ; there are no bullets for us, no 
rotten sleepers, no misplaced switches, no defective boil- 
ers. I don’t believe we shonld be hung if we com- 
mitted murder ! Don’t begrudge me my ten minutes ; 
turn your back upon the clock, and trust me to get 
myself away in time.” 

The tears swam in my eyes, and I looked down. 

‘‘ Ah, don’t !” he exclaimed, with frantic irritation 
in his voice. “ You don’t know what you’re doing. 
A man can’t stand everything at once.” 

Then he 'got up and walked once or twice across 
the room. “ You are sorry for me ?” he said, stopping 
before me, his voice full of the deepest tenderness. 
“ I am ashamed that I have made you cry. I will go 
away and put an end to this ; good-bye.” 

‘‘Don’t go till it is time,” I faltered. “ You don’t 
seem to think I care, but you might know I do.” 

“ How should I know it when you’ve told me that 
you don’t !” 

I haven’t told you that. We can’t go all over it 
again, but you ought to understand. It makes me very 
unhappy.” 

“ Yes, because you are sorry for me. Isn’t that all 
that makes you so unhappy ?” 

“I shall be very lonely, you must see that. I 
haven’t so very much pleasure in my life. It makes 
me very uneasy and anxious to know you feel so bitter 
and unhappy. Won’t you promise me to get over it, 
and to .be like yourself again? I wish this summer 
could be blotted out.” 


IN THE BROODING DARKNESS. 209 

‘‘ All, well, it can’t be, that is all. Good bye.” 

1 got np now ; tbe bands of the clock pointed at 
five minutes of nine. 

“ Good-bye,” be said, again, turning towards me, 
and bolding out bis band. 

I put mine in bis, and be held it, and looked into 
my eyes with an intent and searching look. 

“ Wby must I go ?” be said. “ Wbat is tbe need ?” 

“ There is a need,” I said. “You must go, but ob, 
don’t go without being friends with me. Indeed, it 
isn’t my fault.” 

“ Whose fault is it ?” 

“ Whose ? How can I tell ? Fate’s — ” 

“ Shall I tell you wbat it is ? It is your children 
stand between us. You cannot say it is not. You 
aren’t wilbng to trust them to me, whatever you might 
be willing for yourself. I can’t blame you. I have led 
an idle life ; but you needn’t have made it final — you 
might have let me try.” 

“ It must be final. Do not let us talk about it any 
more. Only be friends with me, and believe I am un- 
happy too.” 

He did not let go my hand, nor take his eyes from 
my face, but grew whiter and whiter. 

“Good-bye,” I said, pale and trembling. “You 
ought to go — you will be left.” 

After a moment more he released my hand; his 
lips moved — I don’t know what he said. We were 
standing near the parlor door ; Eex jumped up, and be- 
gan to lick his hand. He took a step forward towards 
the hall, then turned back. 

“ The children are asleep ? mayn’t I look at them 
before I go ?” he said, in an unsteady voice. 


210 


m THE BEOODING DARKHESS. 


He knew the way to their room. I stood in the 
parlor door and watched him go along the narrow hall, 
into the open garret that led to the nursery. He was 
gone three minutes, perhaps ; when he came back, he 
looked deadly white. He did not offer to take my 
hand again or speak to me as he passed me, but the 
look in his eyes was one that I fain would have for- 
gotten. 

He was gone : the gate latch fell for the last time 
after him, and I began to feel the full weight of the 
thing that I had done. I went out on the balcony, and 
walked restlessly up and down, and tried to think over 
all the good and sound reasons that had seemed suffi- 
cient for me, half an hour ago. But they didn’t seem to 
me good and sound any longer ; nature cried out against 
them. What had I done ? I had sent him away from 
me in the state of mind in which men do rash and awful 
deeds. There might be a bullet for him, though he had 
said one never had been found. I thought of his hot 
Irish blood ; I was afraid for him. What right had I to 
spoil his life in this way ? Didn’t his love for me make 
some duty for me ? Were the children and the past all 
that had any claim upon me? Hadn’t I made some 
grave mistake ? 

I saw Sophia go stealthily in from the balcony to 
the dining-room. She had been listening outside at the 
open parlor window, to our parting words. Ah, well, 
she might listen now. She would never hear anything 
iS. ore. It was all over — it was all over ! I said it again 
and again to myself, leaning my head against the little 
pillar that supported the balcony roof, where the 
trumpet creeper twined. The night was utterly star- 
less, and yet there was no mist. There was such a 


m THE BROODING DARKNESS. 


211 


stillness. The surf on tlie beacli was low and faint, 
like (he pulse of a dying man. I heard no sound at 
all but that, and for that I had to listen keenly. We 
were so far from the village, no bustle reached us, if 
there were any there. I counted the minutes, and 
wondered if he would reach the train. Oh, if he 
might not ! If he had to come back, I should tell him * 
that he need not go. Why had I let him go ? I prayed 
that I might have another chance to see him ; it was 
not all over, it should not be all over ; I would write, 
and tell him to come back. Ah, where should I write ? 

I remembered he had left me no address ; it was even 
possible, in the haste of his going, and the displeasure 
at his departure, he had left none with the Emlyns ; it 
seemed to me as if his brief and bright presence had 
been like a star in those black heavens, suddenly shoot- 
ing down and being lost in darkness. 

The minutes passed; the village clock had long 
sounded out nine, and still no coming of the train. It 
was late ; he would make it ; there was no longer any 
hope that he might miss it. It was nearly twenty-five 
minutes after nine when the whistle sounded, sharp and 
piercing, through the still air. I held my breath during 
the few moments, till it sounded again ; he had said 
good-bye to Ned, he had gone into the close and dimly- 
lighted car, and had thrown himself into a seat. Yes, it 
was all over, for the train was moving, the whistle 
sounded clear and distinct across the plain. I could see 
the lights of the train as it moved along the level country, 
for half a mile distinctly in my sight. Everything was 
dark but that moving chain of lights, creeping in silence 
from me, further and further every instant. A sort of 
oppression seemed to overpower me, and when the last 


212 


m THE BEOODrNG DARKNESS. 


light wavered and was swallowed up in darkness, I sank 
upon a seat, and, burying my face in my hands, said 
some passionate, incoherent words aloud. 

Sophia’s figure appeared in the door-way ; she ap 
proached me. ‘‘Did you call? Do you want any 
tiling ?” she said. 

I lifted my head and leaned it back upon the vine 
by which I sat. “No, I did not call you. I don’t 
want anything.” 

She looked at me keenly and went back to her sew- 
ing. She might look her fill now. I did not care who 
knew. Ah, what had I done ? Had I not been infiu- 
enced by others ? Why had I not listened to my heart ? 
I had thought it was all steadfastness and duty, but how 
much of it had been concession to the world’s opinion ; 
fear of this terrible strong wornan who domineered me 
so. They had called him an adventurer; how that 
word had stuck in my mind ! I could not get rid of 
it; it was coming up continually. If there had not 
been any such word, I wondered if 1 should have sent 
him off. How weak I was, how paltry and poor I 
looked to myseK ; how strong and grand his love looked 
when I compared it. A woman who did not even 
know her own mind, who could deceive herself so, 
who could think herself so firm, when her purpose 
was like shifting sand ! What was the past to me ? I 
hated it, it wearied me to think of it. Arnold — a dear 
brother, nothing more — what feeling had I ever had for 
him that compared to this ? How dull, how shadowy, 
how pale the past all looked. How childish and imma- 
ture the hopes and pleasures of that time. Why had I 
not been a woman, and resolute, and known that a love 
like this had its demands* as well as memories like 


IK THE BROODING DAKKNES8. 


213 


those ? It had been puerile — it had been like a girl in 
a story-book. I had not risen to the occasion that had 
come upon me. I had courted self-sacrifice, and had 
forgotten that I was not sacrificing myself alone. Yes- 
terday it had seemed to me the height of heroism to say 
I would live for my children and put aside all that 
could make life bright to me ; to-night it seemed con- 
temptible. Why could I not have lived for them, and 
saved him, too, from misery ? 

The cold counsels of yesterday had said it would be 
cruelty to them to link their future with one of whom 
I knew so little ; to risk their certain daily bread in the 
uncertain fortunes of a nameless adventurer. Through 
much struggle and many straits I had brought them on 
so far in their life’s journey ; in the Providence of God 
I had now a reasonable certainty of competence and 
comfort for them. I had no right to throw this away, 
and put in jeopardy their future : I was bound to give 
them, being fatherless and helpless, my best care, my 
whole love. This new protector, with his shrouded past, 
his uncertain future, his versatile talents, his hot blood — 
what would he make of their lives? What part even 
of myself could I give to them, having first given my- 
self to him ? 

All this to-night seemed ungenerous and unworthy. 
It all seemed to me tainted with a suspicion of his 
honor. If I had believed in him thoroughly, how I 
could have listened to such reasoning. And I did 
believe in him ; what spell had been upon me to decide 
against him ? I could always have trusted him with my 
own fate, why not with my children’s ? Why had this 
conviction come so late ? What was duty, what was 
riffht ? How cDuld I know what God meant me to do 

O 


214 


THE BEOODING DAEKNE8S. 


ever, if upheavals of purpose such as this came over 
me ? Ah, poor children, you have a sorry guardian, 
strong in naught but her repentances ! 

I sat still, leaning my forehead against the vine 
stem : the tears, usually so ready, did not fall to-night : 
a weight of lead was on my heart, a fire of suffering in 
my brain. Each moment that passed took him further 
and further from me ; the distance between us grew 
with every second. I stretched out my arms into the 
thick, dark night ; I prayed God to let him come back 
to me ; to save me from this devouring anguish. How 
could I bear my life ; how would this wound ever heal ? 
All was so still, so heavy, so fixed, so fated. The air 
itself stood still ; it seemed to me the ocean, too, was 
dead, for I heard no longer its faint pulse upon the 
shore. 

Once only I heard a little sound that startled me. 
As I leaned my hot forehead against the vine, below 
me, there was a faint rustling of the lilac bush that 
grew beside the path, and an instant after, the gate 
latch was softly lifted, and as softly dropped into its 
place. I raised my head and looked down, but it was 
like looking into the eternal abyss ; there was nothing 
but black darkness a foot beyond the house. I roused 
myself enough to walk along the balcony and glance 
into the dining-room. It was not Sopliia ; she sat 
bending over her sewing, slightly rocking, her lips 
tight pressed together. She had not heard the sound ; 
it must have been light, indeed, to have escaped her 
ear. It did not trouble me long; it must have been 
some trespasser passing across the yard, coming from 
the lane. I went back to the chair in which I liad been 
s.tting ; physically, I was so weary and overstrained ; 


m THE BROODING DARKNESS. 


215 


mentally, I was so far from any ability to rest oi calm 
myself. The conflict of feeling did not abate as the 
night in her swift course moved on. 

Ten o’clock struck; eleven; twelve. I felt as if 
years of trial had passed over me, and yet the hours 
were not slow. A bitter feeling seemed to grow upon 
me. At last I forced myself to rise and go into the 
house. I hated the thought of the house, and the four 
walls pressing in upon me. The black, midnight sky 
had seemed less gloomy. But I must take up the 
burden of daily life and nightly care again. My lip 
curled with a bitter contempt for my puerile round of 
duties, having left the great one so undone. I must 
put out the parlor lamp, lock the front door, see that the 
windows on the balcony were fastened. But as I 
passed the dining-room, I saw that Sophia still was 
there, by the lamp, stitching relentlessly, and not look- 
ing up. I knew she often sewed half the night ; it was 
i.ot unusual ; warm clothes for the children were now in 
ijimd, and she bent her whole mind upon the work of 
each season as it came. Still, I knew she would not 
leave me up ; suspicion, curiosity, both would oblige 
her to see me fastened in my room. 

When I came into the parlor, I sank down into the 
large chair by the table that I had wheeled up for Mac- 
nally to sit down in. Three hours ago ! It seemed a 
lifetime, and yet but a moment. The irrevocable three 
hours ; what a gulf of space that had put between us, 
widening every moment ; he speeding on into the night, 
in that chain of moving lights ; I purpose-weak, bound, 
left behind helpless in the dark stagnation of the life that 
I had chosen. The hands of the clock moved on an- ^ 
other half hour. The lamp took the law into its own 


216 


IN THE BROODING DARKNESS. 


hands and went ont. Only a faint light came in from 
the dining-room across the hall. Sophia, who had moved 
restlessly about to attract my attention for some little 
time, now came in at the parlor door. 

‘‘ Ann Day went away without her money this even- 
ing,’’ she said, in . a hard, practical way that grated on me 
unbearably. 

I was leaning back in the chair, my eyes shut. I 
did not open them, but said did she ?” in a tone of in 
difference that seemed to make her angry. She went 
about slamming the shutters, fastening the door ; pres- 
ently she said, taking her lamp in her hand : 

“ It is half past twelve o’clock.” 

“ I heard it strike,” I answered, not moving, nor 
even opening my Dyes. She went away angry. I de- 
fied her so far as I was capable of having any feeling 
toward her. She had done me all the ill she could ; 
she would never trouble me again. My long strain 
had exhausted me. I lay back listless in my chair : 
several minutes passed, I heard her moving about in 
the open chamber outside the nursery, closing the one 
small window in it. Then I heard her go up the attic 
stairs, and walk across the bare floor to the end of the 
rough, empty space, where the Indian woman slept. I 
knew she always went up there, before she went to bed 
herself, to see that the woman had put out her light 
and left the scuttle safe in case a shower should come 
up in the night. She came down, and shut the door 
of the stair-way. Then she went to the door of the 
kitchen stair-way, and tried it. I heard her mutter 
angrily something about the woman having left it open. 
She shot the bolt with wrath, and then went on into 
the nursery. 


m THE BROODING DARKNESS. 


217 


A moment, perhaps two, passed, and then a shriek, 
the most agonizing and blood-curdling that human voice 
ever uttered, smote my ear. I started bewildered to my 
feet and grasped the table for support. Another, and 
another, then a silence ; I could not move, my limbs 
had no power in them, I seemed under a spell. An- 
other moment, and Sophia stood in the door-way, hold- 
ing a light in her hand ; her face was horrible to look 
at, white, stricken, with eyes that blazed with evil, 
evil fire. 

‘‘Come and see,” she said in tones that hissed, 
“ come and see your lover’s work.” 

I did not move. She darted towards me seized my 
wrist with a grasp of steel, and dragged me on into the 
open chamber. 

“ Come with me, come with me and see,” she kept 
repeating wildly. 

But at the nursery door her grasp relaxed, she fell 
down shuddering in a sort of swoon ; the light fell with 
her and went out. I stood on the threshold, in utter 
darkness ; I could not even see the outline of the nurs- 
ery window, though it had stood wide open. It was 
the nursery lamp that Sophia had held : that in the din- 
ing-room she had put out. My thoughts would not 
come ; where were the matches kept, how should I get 
a light ? A sort of paralysis came over me, I didn’t 
know what to do, I could not have done it at that in- 
stant if I had. I didn’t know what I feared. I grasped 
the door-post with my hand — my feet were against the 
senseless body of Sophia lying stretched across the 
threshold. There was such a stillness, such an inky 
darkness. I don’t know how many minutes it was be- 
fore I regained intelligence and force enough to decide 


218 


IN THE BROODING DARKNESS. 


where and how I should get a light. I could remeuiher 
no place where the matches stood hut in mj own room. 
I put out my hands and guided myself by the rough 
boarding across the chamber, to my door. I stumbled 
over something lying just inside it ; trembling and al- 
most senseless with fear, I put down my hand. It was 
only an overturned foot-stool. I was in the presence of 
I knew not what horror ; my hand might touch it the 
next minute. I groped along to the dressing-table 
where the match-box stood ; too bewildered to be care- 
ful I guided my hand badly, and struck over a china 
vase which fell with a crash to the floor ; the sound 
seemed frightful to me in my excited state. I listened 
for some terrible result. 

“It will wake the children,” I thought; but a 
heavy, dumb silence fell. I could hear the beating of 
my heart. At last I reached the matches, but my 
hand shook so, I could not make a light till I had tried 
many times. The candle stood near — another mo- 
ment — and the faint, reassuring light flickered under 
my eyes. I looked around. There was the over- 
turned footstool and the broken vase; there was 
nothing else out of place. I must go to the children. 
It was in the nursery that Sophia had uttered that 
tirst awful shriek ; ah ! what was I to see ? The chil- 
dren — I must get to them. 

I made my way back across the open chamber to 
where Sophia lay. Where was Rex ? why did he not 
bark? why was it so awfully still? As I went, the 
faintly-lighted candle flickered with the motion, and 
threatened to go out. I put my hand before it. 
Sophia had struck her arm as she fell ; there was a lit- 
tle trickle of blood across the hand that lay outstretched 


m THE BEOODING DARKNESS. 


219 


upon the sill. I stepped over it, and stood inside the 
room. Breathlessly I held up the candle, and glanced 
around. It was all in the order in which I had left it 
four hours before ; nothing seemed out of place. 
There were Maidy’s shoes upon the chair, and Baby’s 
snowy, folded clothes, and the tiny sack hanging on 
the back; the sponges, the towels, all as I had seen 
them then. Had Sophia lost her reason ? What mys- 
tery was I surrounded by ? 

I drew a deeper breath, but with a palpitating heart 
came near the children’s cribs. I saw the blankets 
were disarranged ; Baby lay half-uncovered. I went in 
between the cribs, and stooped down eagerly, holding 
the candle low. 

There lay my Baby ; her little head thrown back 
upon the pillow, her lips apart, her limbs drawn up ; 
around her slender throat a slight darkening of the flesh, 
as of a violent, compressing hand. The arm that lay 
upon the coverlid was strangely cold. I put my hand 
upon her heart ; the flesh was cold ; there was no motion. 
I held the flame before her lips ; it did not flicker. 

Maidy’s body lay outstretched, her face down upon 
the pillow, which was bent about it, as if it had been 
held together ; her curls were tangled and torn, a great 
handful of loose hair lay upon the blanket ; her arms, 
relaxed, lay at her sides. She was quite cold. 


CHAPTER XYUI. 


THE COUET-EOOM. 

“ From its intensity of aim 

Our whole life aimless seemed ; 

The very stern reality 
Made us almost think we dreamed.” 

Fabei\ 

we’re all ready now, if you’ll tell the 
Vy carriage to come round ; it is quite time,” and 
Sophia opened the door, and put her head into the next 
rooiii to the one where I sat. It was a large, old-fashioned 
room, wdth a low ceiling. The furniture was common 
and plain, such as one usually finds in country inns. 
An air-tight stove filled with hard coal, made the air 
detestable. It was quite unnecessary, for it was only 
October, and the day was not unusually cold. It had 
been lighted, however, for my comfort, and I did not 
think of making a complaint. The colonel came anx- 
iously forward into the room, followed by his wife. 

“ The carriage is at the door,” he said. ‘‘ How take 
my arm. Do you think you feel quite able ?” 

Mrs. Emlyn was looking at me with unspeakable 
solicitude. Sophia went upon the other side of me, 
her eyes upon my face with leaden scrutiny. 

“ Put that other bottle of salts in your pocket,” she 
[ 220 ] 


THE COITET-EOOM. 


221 


Baid, looking back at Mrs. Emlyn, wlio had fallen be- 
hind ; it’s best to be on the safe side ; we might get 
separated.” 

The colonel leaned down every minnte to look at 
me. It gave me a feeling of dreadful irritation to be*, 
so watched. When we got into the lower hall, and 
were going towards the front door, Sophia took hold 
of my veil. 

Aren’t you going to put it down ?” she said. 

My arm was over it. I held it tight in its position, 
and made no answer. Outside there were only a few 
people standing about ; they had not known that we 
were there. The colonel put me in the carriage, his 
wife beside me, Sophia and himself on the seat oppo- 
site. The fresh air revived me; I leaned back and 
looked out. It was a strange village, or rather town ; 
the county town, in fact ; there were a good man}^ shops, 
and some pretentious houses with cupolas and bay- 
windows close to the street. It seemed all very quiet ; 
there was very little stir. 

“ Did she eat any breakfast ?” said the colonel, in 
a low tone, to Sophia. 

Sophia shook her head. “ She won’t make the 
effort. There is no use in talking to her.” 

Mrs. Emlyn made her an imperious sign to stop. 
She was the only one wlio understood that I needed to 
be let alone. My eyes rested on Sophia’s face, while 
ghe covered her amioyance by busying herself taking a 
key off a bunch that she took out from her pocket. 
Her black clothes made her face look very pale, and 
lier hair, which, a month ago, had been but very slightly 
gray, was now as white as snow. There were dark 
circles round her eyes; her face was most striking; 


222 


THE COURT-ROOM. 


her lips had a feverish look ; there were deep lines 
about her hrm-set mouth. 

The kind colonel looked aged and worn. His man- 
ner was a little flurried, though he spoke with great 
coolness and precision. Mrs. Emlyn had a look of such 
intense self-repression that it was painful to meet her 
eye. She spoke little, and seemed ever to be guarding 
me from the words of others. 

When we approached the court-house, I saw why 
the rest of the town had seemed quiet. Yehicles of 
all sorts and kinds stood thick around it ; all the posts, 
and fences, and trees in sight, had horses tied to them. 
Men were coming and going in through the wide open 
door, boys were ^warming round the windows, looking 
in. We drove to a side door, and no one noticed us. 
An officious deputy in black clothes, who had been 
waiting for us, came forward alertly, and opened the 
door of the carriage. 

“ All right, this way,” he said. 

I put down my great sweeping crape veil, and 
Sophia looked relieved. 

“This way,” he said, going forward. “ Would the 
lady like a glass of water ?” he added, as we entered a 
sort of ante-room. I shook my head. 

“ It’s always handy in the court-room,” he said. “ I 
always keep it handy. You’ve only to look at me if 
you feel faint, and you’ll have a glass of water quick as 
wink.” 

“ She isn’t going to feel faint,” said Mrs. Emlyn, 
standing between him and me. 

“ Of course not, of course not,” he said. “ Only it 
wouldn’t be to wonder at after all she has gone through.” 

Then he went forward and cleared the way for us; 


THE COTJKT-EOOM. 


223 


he seemed to do everything with so much satisfaction 
to himself, with such a clerkly zeal. I don’t clearly 
know what happened for a few moments after this. 
My veil was so oppressive that after, in a great hush, I 
had been led to my seat, with the colonel on one side and 
Sophia on the other, I verified their prognostications, 
and began to feel deadly ill. 

“ It is only the veil,” I tried to say to the colonel, 
who bent nervously over me. 

“ Take the d d thing off,” he whispered hoarse- 

ly to Sophia, who was thrusting sal volatile in my 
face. 

She threw the veil back ; the deputy rushed forward 
with his glass of water. Somebody opened a window 
beside me : in a moment I was better. I motioned to 
Sophia to sit down. She twitched the colonel’s coat 
and he sat down too. There was a great hush again. 

We had come in through a side door, and were led 
along in front of where the jury sat, past the raised 
platform of the judge, to some seats in a railed-ofi space, 
corresponding to that in which they sat. Between us 
and the jury was the judge’s platform. I could not see 
the faces of the jurors. On each hand of the judge sat 
a side judge, a justice of the peace. Below this plat- 
form, on a level with us, was the clerk’s desk. In front 
of this, and running half the width of the room, was a 
i 3ng table, at which the lawyers sat. All this was railed 
oil from the room ; beyond were tiers of seats, packed 
with, people, rows and rows of faces turned towards us. 
The aisle was filled with men and women standing ; 
the door-way was crammed with heads. 

It was the second day of the trial. The day before 
the prisoner had been arraigned at the bar ; had pleaded 


224 


THE OOURT-EOOM. 


not guilty ; the day had been consumed in the impan- 
elling of the jury. This morning the examination of 
the witnesses was to begin. 

The first witness called was Sophia Atkinson. 
When her name sounded, I began to come out of the 
haze of confusion consequent upon my faintness, and 
the entering upon such a strange scene. Sophia grew 
a little white, and I saw her nostrils dilate convulsively ; 
but she got up without looking at any one, and walked 
with a firm step along in front of the lawyers’ table to 
the witness-box, which was at the right of the judge’s 
platform, in front of the jury. This was raised some- 
what above our level, but not to the height of the 
platform. When she took her seat, however, I could 
still see her face. The prosecuting attorney stood up 
in his place, which was at the right end of the lawyers’ 
table, and began examining her. She answered in a 
firm voice, from which, after the first sentence or two, 
all huskiness of agitation disappeared. After being 
sworn and giving her name, he asked lier place of resi- 
dence. 

South Berwick, in the old house known as Det- 
mold’s, on the main road, half a mile up from the 
beach.” 

How long have you lived there ?” 

‘‘ Since the nineteenth of May last.” 

“ What is your occupation?” 

“ I am a nurse.” 

“ How long have you been in the family in which 
you now live as nurse ?” 

“ Since my fourteenth year ; I am now thirty-three 
years old.” 

The lawyer, who was blond and bland, waved his 


THE COUET-ROOM. 


225 


hand “ Only answer the questions put you. You 
have been there nineteen years then, I understand 

“ hlineteen years,” said Sophia, briefly. 

“ Look at the prisoner at the bar, and tell me if you 
know him.” 

I followed Sophia’s glance; it went straight to' 
the table where the lawyers were, at the end near our 
seats. I had not seen him before, in the confusion of 
faces and voices around me. Her eyes and mine fell 
on him at the same moment. He sat with his back 
towards the railing, against which the people pressed ; 
his head was bent down; he leaned a little on the 
table; his face was turned towards the witness-box. 
She must have met his glance full, but she never 
quailed. 

“ I know him,” she said. 

“ How long have you known him ?” 

“ Since the second or third of June last.” 

“ How often have you been in the habit of seeing 
him since then ?” 

“ Every day ; sometimes two or three times a 
day.” 

“ Have you seen him in the house, oi in the street, 
or where ?” 

“ I have seen him principally in the house, where 
he came every day.” 

“ Can you tell me why he came there every day ?” 

“ To see my mistress, I suppose.” 

“When did these visits begin? As early as the 
second or third of June ?” 

“ They began then, but they did not become daily 
till a fortnight later, I should think.” 

“ Did he generally come alone ?” 


226 


THE CiOUET-EOOM. 


“Sometimes alone, sometimes with the Emlyn 
children, whom he taught.” 

“ How did he occupy himself during these visits at 
the house 

“ Laughing and talking with her and with the chil- 
dren ; more often with her alone.” 

“ Did she go out with him alone 

“ Never that I can recollect.” 

“How did your mistress seem to receive these 
visits ?” 

“ She seemed to like them ; she was always friends 
with him.” 

“ Did she have any disagreement with him ever — 
any quarrel ?” 

“Never any quarrel that I can remember.” 

“ State anything that you can recollect about what 
occurred at any of these visits ; what you noticed be- 
tween them ; in his manner to her, for instance.” 

“Well, he was always making excuses to come; 
he was always bringing her her letters from the office, 
or shells or things for the children, or some message 
from the other house. He always seemed to be follow- 
ing her about with his eyes, and to be trying to keep 
her attention to himself when there was anybody else 
in the room. He acted like a man that wants to make 
a woman like him.” 

“ How did she treat him — kindly ?” 

“ I object,” said the prisoner’s counsel, rising. 

“ On what grounds ?” the judge asked. 

“ On the ground of irrelevancy ; it is too remote, at 
least.” 

“ What have you to say in favor of your objection ? 
I will hear you on that point, Mr. Hardinge.” 


THE COUKT-KOOM. 


22T 


“Well, sir, in the first place, what has this lady’s 
treatment of the prisoner got to do with tlie murder of 
these children ? The lady is not on trial here. This is 
the trial of Bernard Macnally. If she treated him well, 
that does not show us any motive for the killing of her 
children. My learned brother doesn’t offer to show 
that she and the prisoner were at enmity. He has 
proved the contrary by this witness. In his opening 
yesterday, he disclosed no purpose of that sort. This 
evidence is too remote. It puts the mother of the mur- 
dered children on trial. I am not retained to defend 
her.” 

The blond and bland prosecutor looked nettled. He 
had a skin that showed his emotions ; besides, his coun- 
try breeding gave him less hardihood in argument. 
His opponent, the prisoner’s counsel, was a lawyer of 
eminence, a close thinker, an adroit pleader, hardened 
by years of city practice. It was like putting half a 
dozen green, strong, strapping, country fellows against 
a trained, professional wrestler. He could throw them 
all into a heap, and walk unlimping off the field. Mr. 
Bell had plenty of help, but he knew he needed it, and 
he felt unpleasantly that his trials were beginning early, 
in the examination of his very first witness. 

Mr. Hardinge was a man of middle size, rather 
slight than stout. He was probably not more than 
forty-five years old, though his moustache and hair were 
very grizzled, while his well-drawn eyebrows were still 
'juite black. His head was admirably shaped, his fea- 
i ures regular. His eyes were dark and very penetrat- 
ing ; he had a manner which, it must be confessed, was, 
])rofessionally, offensive. There was a terrible hardness 
about him, and his opponents always prepared for the 


228 


THE COUET-ROOM. 


worst. The light-haired and suffused Mr. Bell felt bel- 
ligerent to his fingers’ ends. Mr. Hardinge seemed to 
feel nothing. 

“ Your Honor,” said Mr. Bell, when the judge indi- 
cated to him that he would hear his reply, ‘‘ I propose 
to show that this lady and the prisoner were on terms 
of intimacy ; that that intimacy had ripened into an * 
affection, which was mutual. I propose to show what 
was in her heart, as well as what was in his.” 

“ There you propose to show too much,” retorted 
Mr. Hardinge. “ The jury will have to wait till the 
day of judgment to know that.” 

Prosecuting attorney. “ My theory, if I can be 
allowed to state it without interruption, is that the pris- 
oner at the bar committed this crime, to rid himself of 
the only obstacle in the way of gaining the woman 
whom he sought. I will show this before I have got 
through with the witness -on the stand, if, as I say, I 
can be permitted to go on.” 

Mr. Hardinge. “ This prosecution, your Honor, 
had its origin in a public clamor for the life of the 
prisoner ; race prejudices are all against him, enemies 
have been fanning the fiame, senseless stories have 
been set afioat, which it shall be my care to show at 
their true value. I am glad to see, at this early date, 
that the theory of the prosecution is breaking down 
by its own weight. Ho counsel, however ingenious, 
could carry far such a burden of, I will not say incon- 
gruities, but impossibilities, as is here presented to the 
jury. A man, in sound mind (I do not set up the 
plea of madness for my client, though my brother of 
the prosecution offers it to me so gratuitously), a man 
in sound mind, educated, refined, and of apparently 


THE COURT-ROOM. 


229 


liigli moral character, proposes to himself to take the 
life of a child, whom he knows to be a part of the very 
existence of its mother, to gain a stronger hold upon 
the alfections of that mother ! Your Honor, does this 
theory commend itself to your intelligence ? I fancy 
* tlie stubborn, solid, common sense of Sutphen county 
will revolt at this. I fancy it will take more legal in- 
genuity tlian the century has yet developed, to prove 
to the minds of this jury that a man might devise to 
himself the wisdom of cutting off the left hand of his 
mistress, that she might more trustingly put in his her 
right ! The proposed testimony shows, at most, that the 
prisoner had no motive for the commission of the 
crime.” 

Prosecuting Attorney. “Then I contend it is 
admissible.” 

Defendam£s Counsel. “On the contrary, we will 
prove the want of motive in the prisoner. That is our 
aft’air. You have no retainer from the prisoner to pre- 
sent his case. It is the part of the prosecution to prove 
an adequate motive for the commission of the crime, 
and the part of the defence to show a want of motive.” 

Judge. “ I will sustain the objection so far as to 
disallow the question in this form. The witness can 
fc ‘ate what she has seen.” 

Attorney for the Prosecution. “State what you 
have ever seen or heard during iiis visits.” 

Wit^ness. “ Well, she always was pleasant.” 

Attorney. “'When he brought her flowers or pres- 
ents, was she much affected by it ?” 

Witness, “ I don’t remember that he ever brought 
her any.” 


230 


THE COTJET-ROOM. 


Attorney. ‘‘When he didn’t come, or anything 
like that, did she seem disappointed and unhappy ?” 

Witness. “I don’t remember any time that lie 
didn’t come. He was always coming.” 

(A faint ripple of amusement through tlie court- 
room.) 

I saw that, in a certain sense, Sophia was loyal to 
me. Muck as she hated and desired to ruin Macnally^ 
she would never degrade me, according to her view, to 
the attitude of having favored him ; throughout she 
would make him my rejected suitor. The attorney 
asked her several more questions which I have forgot- 
ten, all aiming at establishing my preference for him. 
Sophia stubbornly put me forward as amiable and 
gentle, “ kind to a visitor, as any lady would be,” but 
her memory served her for nothing beyond that — noth- 
ing. He finally gave up the matter and told her to state 
where she was, and how occupied, on the evening of the 
second of September. 

“ State, in your own words, all that you remember 
of what happened after you had put the cliildren to bed 
on the evening of that day.” 

“The children were both asleep before the clock 
struck seven. I put the nursery in order, as I always 
do. Then I went down-stairs, and told the Indian wo- 
man to go up to bed early, for she had been out late 
the night before, and looked very sleepy. She was sit- 
ting by the fire. The supper things were all washed 
up, and the kitchen looked tidy. I told her to be sure, 
and shut all the doors fast when she went up. I gen- 
erally tell her that. I trust her to shut up alw’ays. 
Then I took my sewing, and went into the dining- 
room, which adjoins the nursevy, and sat down by the 


THE COTIRT-EOOM. 


231' 


lamp The door was shut that goes into the nursery 
from the dining-room, but all the other doors on that 
floor were open. It was a hot night. I shut that door 
because I didn’t want the children to be disturbed by 
the light, or by any noise that 1 might make. About 
the time that it struck eight, I remember noticing that 
my mistress was moving about in the other room, the 
parlor, on the other side of the little entry. She went 
^ into the nursery after a few minutes and staid there a 
‘ considerable time, I should think twenty minutes. Then 
I heard her come back and sit down in the parlor, and 
for a good little piece all was quiet. Then I heard the 
gate open, and somebody come up the steps. I looked 
out of the dining-room door, and saw the prisoner as he 
came in at the front door. He looked very pale and 
bad. I knew he was going away for good that night 
by the train. I had heard ISTaomi Emlyn say so. He 
went into the parlor, and I heard their voices, talking, 
for some minutes. I couldn’t hear what either of them 
said, I was too far off. After a little while, my mis- 
tress came quickly into the dining-room, and went to 
the sideboard and poured out a glass of wine and hur- 
ried out with it. She looked frightened. I laid down 
my sewing, and went out on the balcony. I saw her 
give it to him, and saw that he was lying back in the 
big chair, looking very ill. She stood before him ; I 
couldn’t see her face, nor hear what she said, because 
her back was to the window, outside of which I stood, 
and they were over the far side of the room. Presently 
he seemed better, and she sat down by the table near 
him. She looked very sad, and as if she was sorry for 
him. He looked dreadfully cut up. They talked, but 
I didn’t hear anything they said. Presently she looked 


232 


THE COURT-BOOM. 


up at the clock, and then he got up, and then she. He 
said ‘ Good-bje.’ He looked awfully. They had then 
moved nearer the window, and I could hear what both 
of them said distinctly. I heard him say, ‘ W hy must 
I go?’ I heard her say, ‘ You must go, but don’t go 
without being friends with me.’ Then he said some- 
thing that 1 didn’t understand ; and then he said, ‘ It is 
your children stand between us, you cannot say it is not. 
You aren’t willing to trust them to me, whatever you 
might be willing for yourself.’ His voice fell then ; he 
said something that I couldn’t hear, and she did too. 
Then I heard her say, ‘Good-bye. You ought to go, 
you will be left.’ He let go her hand, which he had 
had hold of, and took a step or two into the entry. 
Then I heard him say, ‘The children are asleep? 
Mayn’t I look at them before I go ?’ Then I heard 
him go through the hall, and into the room that leads 
into the nursery. He was gone about three minutes, 
I should think ; it seemed to me a good while, but the 
clock hadn’t struck nine yet, and the train went at nine 
fifteen. That was why I noticed. I thought he meant 
to get left. When he came out, I was standing behind 
the blind door, which was standing part way open — I 
mean, not folded back against the house. He could 
not see me. I looked through it right into the entry. 
He came from the open chamber into the hall. My 
mistress stood in the door of the parlor, half in the 
hall, waiting for him. He looked as white as a sheiet. 
He did not offer to take her hand again, or to say good- 
bye over, as I tliought he’d have been sure to do. He 
just looked at her, a kind of desperate look, and passed 
right by her, and went out, pushing the blind door back, 


THE COURT-ROOM. 


233 


and down the steps, and through the gate, and out into 
the road.” 

There had been the deep hush of intense listening 
over the whole court-room. As her voice dropped, and 
she paused, there was the faint sound of breaths drawn 
deep, of heads lifted — excitement at its climax. 

“You say the clock had not struck nine then?” 

“ [N’o, it struck just after he went down the steps. I 
thought he’d barely reach the train, I remember. I 
went back into the dining-room and took up my sewing. 
I forgot to say, just before he came into the house, it 
must have been half past efght about, I heard the woman 
go up-stairs to bed. I remember the time particularly, 
because I looked up at the clock and said to myself, 
she wouldn’t have been in bed till ten if it hadn’t been 
for the fair and festival of the night before. 1 wondered 
to myself when she came up the kitchen stairs, if slie 
hadn’t been too sleepy to put out the fire. I heard her 
go up the attic stairs ; I heard her moving about over 
my head ; she sleeps at the end of the garret that is 
over the dining-room. In a few minutes all was quiet, 
and I never heard another sound from there.” 

“ Did your mistress go back into the parlor ? De- 
scribe what followed the departure of the prisoner.” 

“ She didn’t go back into the parlor. She went out 
on the bale ony. I went on with my sewing. I heard 
the whistle of the train as it went off ; I sat and sewed 
a long time. Once or twice I got up, and looked out 
of the window. I didn’t leave the dining-room that 
evening except once to go on the balcony and see 
if she wanted me. I heard the clock strike ten, then 
ele^'en, then twelve. I had a piece of work that J 
wanted very much to finish.” 


234 


THE COURT-ROOM. 


“ Do you often sit up as late as that 

“Yes, when I am busy with anything 1 have in 
hand ; sometimes a good deal later.” 

“During this time you did not hear any sound about 
the house 

“ I heard nothing at all. It was a still night. There 
wasn’t any wind. I have very quick ears.” 

“ How about your mistress ? Did she go in the 
house ?” 

“ Never, once. If she had gone in, I couldn’t have 
helped seeing her pass the dining-room door. If she 
had gone down the steps, I couldn’t have helped hearing 
her.” 

“ What was she doing there, all those three hours 

“ Sitting still and resting, I suppose. She couldn’t 
have been reading ; there wasn’t light enough. It was 
a hot night. The balcony was the pleasantest place to 
be.” 

“ Did she seem unhappy, depressed ?” 

“ Couldn’t say.” 

“ Didn’t you have any conversation with her ; didn’t 
you speak to her at all ?” 

“ I asked her if she wanted anything ; she said she 
didn’t ; that was all that passed between us.” 

“ About what time did she go into the house ?” 

“ A little after twelve, I should think.” 

“ Relate what occurred after she went in.” 

“ She went into the parlor and sat down. The lamp 
had gone out there ; she sat in the dark. After a little 
while I got up and went into the room, and said some- 
thing to her about the house, I think. She didn’t seem 
to take much interest. Then I went about and be^an 
to shut up. I thought she ought to be going to bed ; 


THE COUET-EOOM. 


235 


it’s bad for people to sit up so late, when they haven’t 
any work to do and can just as well go to bed as not. 
After I had shut up the front part of the house, I went 
up-stairs, and saw the Indian woman fast asleep in her 
bed. Then I went to the rear of the open chamber, and 
fastened the window. It was then half past twelve. I 
had heard the clock strike, and had told her, to remind 
her it was time to go to bed. I found the nursery in 
order, as I left it. I moved around a little, putting 
away my work, and getting out something from the 
closet. By and by I lifted the lamp from the corner 
where it stood, behind a screen, and went over towards 
the children’s cribs, to look at them as I always do, the 
last thing before I go to bed.” 

A choking sound rose in the woman’s throat ; she 
stopped speaking, bent her head down a little, and with 
her hand beat nervously upon the arm of the chair in 
which she sat. A low murmur of sympathy came from 
the women in the crowd of listeners. I knew she was 
making a stem fight for self-control, and I knew, too, 
that she would conquer. Presently she lifted her head, 
and went on in a steady voice. 

“I went to the little one first ; she sleeps on the out- 
side, so I can get at her easiest ; the oldest Httle girl’s 
crib is in the corner ; there is room to pass in between 
the two cribs. I saw — she wasn’t as I left her. My 
first thought was she had had a fit or something. Her 
little legs were drawn up as if she had a hard pain, her 
head was way back on the pillow, her mouth was open 
— she looked as children do in convulsions, except that 
she hadn’t that drawn look about the face. I put down 
the light and seized her in my arms. I felt as I touched 
her that she was very cold. I don’t know what I did 


236 


THE COURT-KOOM. 


then — for a minute, my thought was she had had a fit. 
I didn’t see the mark on her throat that I saw after- 
wards. I was in such a sort of taking for a second I 
didn’t know which way to turn. I had a feeling I 
must get her in a hot bath. I was afraid to tell her 
mother. I generally do everything for them myself. 
I caught up the lamp and ran towards the stove to light 
the fire. As I passed the crib where the other little 
girl was, I don’t know how it happened I looked at her. 
I wasn’t thinking about her. I saw something was 
wrong with her — she was lying on her face — the pillow 
was jammed about her head ; she couldn’t breathe the 
way she lay. I ran in between the cribs and felt of her 
little arm that lay outside the covers — it was as cold as 
Baby’s was. Her hair was torn and tangled. Some of 
it that had been torn out in the struggle was lying on 
the blanket and caught in the sleeve of my dress — I found 
it there next day. I didn’t know what I was doing 
then. I ran out of the room and called their mother 
to come in ; my screaming frightened her so, she did not 
move, but stood still, shaking. I caught her by the 
hand and dragged her towards the room. Before I got 
there, I fell down in a faint, and I don’t know anything 
that happened after that for a good while.” 

There was a pause : you could have heard the rustle 
of a leaf. 

“Tell us what you remember when you came to 
your senses.” 

“ I was lying just where I fell : Matilda, the Shinne- 
cock woman, was crying over me. I saw people in the 
room. The first person I saw to know was the doctor ; 
he was stooping down over the baby. The mother of 
the children sat there between the two little cribs ; her 


THE COUET-ROOM. 


237 


head leaned against the wall : she was like ashes ; she 
had a hand on each of the cribs. She looked at every- 
body that came near. I thought she was going to die. 
I got up and tried to go to her. After that I can’t 
remember very much, my head felt so light, and I 
couldn’t seem to think of the same thing long at a 
time.” 

“ Throw your mind back, and recall, if you please, 
some of the incidents of that day. Who came to the 
house ?” 

“ The grocer’s man came twice, and a boy from the 
Neck with fish, Matilda’s boy, if I remember right. 
There was a woman also, who comes every week to 
wash ; she came at seven o’clock, and went away late 
in the afternoon. And old Andrew was there for a 
couple of hours in the morning, splitting wood. That 
was all, except a man who came along and asked for 
something to eat. Matilda gave him something, and he 
went ofi down the lane. Oh, yes; Naomi Emlyn 
came after breakfast; and their man stopped at the 
gate to bring some letters, which hadn’t come the night 
before. There was nobody else that I can recollect.” 

“ That is all,” said Mr. Bell, sitting down, with a 
glance in the direction of the prisoner’s counsel. 

Mr. Hardinge got up to cross-examine her ; he was 
very deliberate. He put his hand on the back of a 
chair, glanced at some memoranda that lay before him, 
and turned toward Sophia. 

“ You have said, I think, that you have known the 
prisoner since the early part of June ?” 

‘‘Yes.” 

“Your relations with him during this time were 
pleasant ?” 


238 


THE COTJBT-EOOM. 


“I didn’t have any relations with him. I didn’t 
have anything at all to do with him.” 

“ How was that, seeing him so often ?” 

“ I don’t hold I’m bound to have pleasant relations 
with everybody that I see very often.” 

“ Well, I suppose you mean us to understand by 
that, you weren’t an admirer of his, exactly 

“ You may understand what you like.” 

Your sex are sometimes hard to understand. 
Here is a young gentleman, of good address and high 
breeding, coming to the house every day. He was 
civil, I’ve no doubt, to everybody in it. Why didn’t 
he please you, if I may ask the question ?” 

“ I don’t admit there was any such person as you 
describe coming to the house every day.” 

“ Then describe the person that did come, if you 
can do it more correctly. You certainly had better 
opportunities for judging.” 

“ A common Irishman, lifting his eyes to his bet- 
ters, was the man I saw ; and I saw him for nothing 
else, from the first time that he darkened the door till 
the last time that he went out of it, leaving our chil- 
dren dead behind him.” 

Sophia’s words fairly hissed ; her angry eyes were 
fixed defiantly on the lawyer, whom already she de- 
tested. 

“Can you in any way account for this aversion?” 
he said. 

“We can’t always account for the way we feel 
towards people,” she returned, rendering it, by a glance, 
a personal tribute to her interlocutor. 

“Was he — presuming — overbearing — ^in his manner 
towards you ?” 


THE COUET-KOOM. 


239 


“ I should think not ; he wouldn’t have tried that 
twice, you may be very certain.” 

“ W as he ever disrespectful to your mistress 

“ Disrespectful ! In one sense, no ; in another, 
yes.” 

“ Explain to me both senses, will you ?” 

“ He wasn’t disrespectful in his way of talking to 
her ; if she had been the queen, he couldn’t have been 
humbler. He was disrespectful in daring to speak to 
her at all, in daring to come near her, in daring to 
think she might possibly look at a low fellow such 
as he.” 

“ Then you know something to his disadvantage ? 
Something about his birth and parentage 

“Ho, I don’t know anything about them. I don’t 
want to know. I’ve got my eyes and all my senses, 
and that’s enough for me.” 

“ But we’re after facts just now. If he wasn’t 
uncivil to you, nor disrespectful in his way of talking 
to your mistress, perhaps he was unkind and irritable 
with the children, and that turned you against him ?” 

“ Ho, he knew too much for that. He always had 
them after him. He was petting them enough to make 
you sick.” 

“ The instincts of children are said to be correct. 
How did the children act towards him? Did they 
show any of the aversion that one might be led to look 
for ?” 

“ Ho, I can’t say they did.” 

“ Hever from the first ?” 

“ Ho ; little things like them couldn’t know much 
about the real character of people; they liked to be 
petted ; natural enough they should.” 


240 


THE COHET-EOOM. 


“ Perhaps he bribed them and brought them toys 
and sugar plums V’ 

“ I never saw them, if he did.” 

Then their great fondness for him was just the re- 
sult of his kind and affectionate ways with them 

“ I don’t 82ij what it was the result of.” 

There was a wrangle of objections several times 
during her examination, but the judge did not sus- 
tain them, and Mr. Hardinge, with a look of sat- 
isfaction, glanced down again at his memoranda, and 
resumed. 

“ I understood you to say, the night of the murder, 
you were sitting in the dining-room with your sewing, 
while your mistress and the prisoner were in the parlor, 
talking. What led you to go out on the balcony at the 
time you did ?” 

“ Because I wanted to, I suppose ; I wasn’t bound to 
sit in the dining-room all night.” 

“ Are you in the habit of sitting or walking on the 
balcony in the evenings ?” 

There’s no reason that I shouldn’t if I want to.” 

“But are you in any such habit 

“No, I’m not.” 

“ Then it’s clear you were out with a motive. It 
was too dark to sew there. You were very anxious to 
get through a piece of work, you said. Why did you 
leave it and go out ?” 

“ My mistress looked frightened when she came to 
get the wine ; I wanted to see if anything was wrong.” 

“ But she, hadn’t called you when she passed you, 
had she ?” 

“No.” 


THE COTTET-KOOM. 241 

“ Then you went to peep in at the parlor window, I 
suppose 

“ There wasn’t any peeping about it, I looked right 

in.” 

“ And when you looked through the slats of the 
blind door ; was that peeping or did you look right in 

“ I looked in ; you can call it peeping if you like it 
better.” 

Mr. Hardinge saw that he had made a point, eaves- 
dropping not beiog popular with juries. 

Now,” he said, “ if you please, let us go forward 
beyond the time when you overheard from behind the 
blind-door, the last words of your mistress and the 
prisoner, to the time when you were shutting up the 
house. In your testimony just now, you make no allu- 
sion to the doors that lead down-stairs from the rear of 
the house. How many are there ?” 

“ In front, there are no doors ; you come up outside 
by the balcony steps on to the balcony, and by the 
front door into the little entry. At the back, there is 
only one way of getting up from the kitchen — that is, 
by the kitchen-stairs, into the open chamber between 
the rooms.” 

“ Do you know whether this door has a fastening ?” 

Yes, it has a bolt.” 

Do you keep this bolted at night ?” 

“Yes, always.” 

“Was it bolted on that night when you went to 
bed ?” 

“I suppose, of course, it was; but I can’t swear 
positively.” 

“I’m surprised, you have remembered everything 
else with such dictinctness;^you,are,a very excellent 


242 


THE COTJKT-RCOM. 


witness — not one in a thousand like you. Can’t you 
remember about the bolting of this door 

“ I told you that I couldn’t.” 

‘‘ Would you have felt it safe to leave it open?” 

‘‘ I always wanted it fastened.” 

“ How did you happen to be so careless this time ?” 

‘‘ I suppose I was tired and sleepy ; it was late. I 
don’t know whether I looked at it or not. I can’t re- 
member everything.” 

“ Whose duty was it to shut it ?” 

“ It was Matilda’s.” 

Mr. Hardinge looked down at his paper again, 
shifted his position a little, and went on. 

“ During that day,” he said, ‘‘ a number of persons 
were at the house, you mentioned. Were they all peo- 
• le that you knew about — ^people that bear a good 
character in the neighborhood ?” 

“ Yes, I believe they do. I’ve known them all 
summer. It’s a very respectable, quiet neighborhood.” 

‘‘ There wasn’t anybody that you hadn’t seen be- 
fore, and that wasn’t perfectly respectable ?” 

“ Hobody but the man that came in and asked for a 
drink of water, and then for something to eat.” 

“ You hadn’t seen him before?” 

‘‘Ho.” 

“ Describe him to me.” 

“ He wasn’t very remarkable looking. I didn’t pay 
much attention to him. He was a dirty sort of fellow, 
sunburnt and shabby. I think he wasn’t very tall ; he 
was thick-set.” 

“ What was the color of his hair ?” 

“ Oh, I don’t remember. His hat was pushed down 
over his head a good deal; I don’t t hink I saw Iris hair.” 


THE COURT-ROOM. 


243 


“ Have you ever seen him since 

“ I haven’t.” 

“ Should yon know him again 

“ I think I should.” 

‘‘ Describe what he did.” 

‘‘ I was pressing out some collars for the children, 
and stood with my back to the door. Ho knocked, and 
when I didn’t answer, he came on into the kitchen. He 
stopped when I asked him what he wanted. He said, a 
glass of water ; he spoke thick, like a German. I told 
him to go to the pump, there was a cup there. Wlien he 
had got his drink he came back, and came half across the 
kitchen floor before I noticed him, and said he was hun- 
gry. I don’t like foreigners, and I was going to send 
him ofl, when Matilda, who was in the buttery, called 
out there was some pieces that she was going to throw 
away. So I said to give them to him. I told him to 
take the pieces outside and eat them. Then I went up- 
stairs with the collars. When I came back he was in 
the kitchen again, sitting by the stair door ; I almost 
tumbled over him when I opened it. I told him to go 
away, and he got up and went.” 

“ He had been in the kitchen some time ?” 

“ Ten minutes, maybe.” 

“Were you afraid of him?” 

“ Ho, of course not.” 

“ You have a good many tramps, I suppose?” 

“Ho, I don’t remember another one all summer.” 

“ I wonder it didn’t make more impression on you ; 
have you thought about it since the murder ?” 

“Hot particularly.” 

“ That is all, I believe, that I shall trouble you to 
tell me now.” He sat down. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


BEING DULY SWORN. 

“ the heart hath treble wrong, 

When it is barr’d the aidance of the tongue.” 

Venus and AdanU, 

** I am cut off from the only world I know, 

From light and life and love, in youth’s sweet prime. 

You do well telling me to trust in God ; 

I hope I io trust in Him. In whom else 
Can any trust ? And yet my heart is cold.” 

Shelley. 

HE court adjourned for an hour at noon. I was 



-L taken into an adjoining room, where I lay down 
on a sort of hard settee. The colonel made me take a 
biscuit and some wine. Sophia, who was a good deal 
shaken by the morning’s work, went out into the air, 
and walked up and down, and tried to steady herself. 
Mrs. Emlyn, with all her superb health, was sensitive 
and excitable in a high degree. She could not bear to 
leave me, and yet her nerves were all unstrung. The 
air of the court-room, she said, was all the trouble. I 
begged her to go out and get the air with Sophia. 
The colonel, who was tender as a woman, sta^^ed and 
watched over me. 

“ What is coming next I asked him. 

“ The doctor’s testimony.” 

“ And who next ?” 


[ 244 ] 


BEING DULY SWOEN. 


245 


“ You, I am afraid.^’ 

“ I can’t be there through the examination of the 
doctor. Can’t I stay here, and go in after, wlien I’m 
called?” 

He assured me that I might. I don’t know how it 
happened, perhaps it was exhaustion, perhaps a gift 
from Heaven, but I fell asleep. My sleep was pro- 
found and dreamless ; I knew nothing till I found some 
one bending over me. 

“ I am afraid you’ll have to wake now,” said the 
colonel. “ Your name will soon be called.” 

When we went into the court-room, and took our 
places again, there was for a moment the same hush 
that I had noticed in the morning when we entered. 
The doctor’s testimony had evidently been professional 
and rather tiresome ; the people had been yawning and 
lolling. They looked much enlivened when we came 
upon the scene. They sat up, and leaned forward and 
gazed intently. The doctor’s cross-examination was 
just ending. He was held for a moment in the vice of 
Mr. Hardinge’s pertinacity. The doctor would not 
yield the point that a longer time than three minutes 
was necessary for the extinction of life under the cir- 
cumstances described. He continued firm. I could 
see there had been a strong point made in favor of the 
prosecution. He finally was permitted to leave the 
stand, and my name was called. 

I did not feel any of the agitation that would have 
seemed inevitable. I certainly knew that there was a 
great deal depending upon what I said ; that certainty 
seemed, strangely, a sort of strength. The colonel led 
me along the narrow space between the judge’s platform 
and tlie table at which the lawyers sat ; he seemed to fear 


246 


BEING DULY SWORN 


I might fall any moment to the floor ; he looked oack 
anxiously at me, when by reason of the narrowness of 
space he had to go in front. Pie supported me as I 
stepped up upon the raised place upon which was the 
chair, and stood beside me, a little at the back, all the 
while that I was kept there. 

The attorney for the prosecution rose. When I 
was sworn and had given my name and residence, I was 
told to look at the prisoner and say if I knew him. 1 
tujTied my eyes towards the seat where I had seen him ; 
certainly I saw nothing. I said yes. 

“Your acquaintance with him began when 

“ About the twentieth of May, I should think.” 

“ Were you acquainted with the family in which he 
lived, before you came to South Berwick ?” 

“No.” 

“ Had you any knowledge of him^ or of his family, 
before you met nim there ?” 

“ None.” 

“Had you any knowledge of the Emlyn family 
before this date ?” 

“ I only knew that there was such a family, and 
that I had hired a house from them.” 

“ You were on good terms with them all after you 
became acquainted ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ You were entirely ignorant of the antecedents of 
\he prisoner ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ How often were you in the habit of seeing him 

“ Almost daily, through the Summer.” 

“ Where did you generally see him — at your own 
house ?” 


BEING DULY SWOEN. 


247 


At my own house very often, or at the house of 
Colonel Emlyn.” 

“Were his visits at your house business visitSj visits 
of necessity V’ 

“ No.” 

“ They were then purely friendly, social visits?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I would ask, if you encouraged these visits ?” 

Mr. Harddnge. “ The witness must state what was 
said or done.” 

Mr. Bell. “ What was his manner towards you ?” 

“ Always gentlemanly and considerate.” 

“ Was it the same to others ?” 

“ Yes, according to my observation.” 

“Was his manner just the same to you as to others 
whom you saw him meet ?” 

“ No, it was different.” 

“ How so ? Will you explain ?” 

“It was naturally different with the Emlyn chil- 
dren, who were his pupils ; and with Colonel and Mrs. 
Emlyn, who were so much older ; and with people 
whom he met whom he scarcely knew.” 

“ But you felt he was more friendly with you ?” 

(“My learned brother is slaying the slain,” cried 
Mr. Hardinge. “ The testimony of the woman Sophia 
is enough. We know he was her suitor.”) 

I took the cue from this interjected sentence, as I 
was meant to, and said : 

“Yes.” 

“ Was this acceptable to you ?” 

“ I was glad to have him for my friend.” 

“ Was his manner indicative of anything more than 
friendship ?” 


248 


BEING DULY SWORN. 


“ It may be.*’ 

“ Did you make any objection to its being sc ?” 

“I don’t remember.” 

‘‘ If be had asked yon to marry him, and you had 
been free of other ties, such as the care of your chil 
dren, would you have married him ?” 

Mr. Hardinge sprang to his feet. Your Honor, 
that is not evidence. It is bad enough to endure such 
baiting of a suffering woman, when it is kept within 
strict legal bounds ; but I deny that the counsel for the 
prosecution has the right to call for an opinion in the 
nature of a mental operation.” 

Mr. Bell. “ My brother told us this morning he 
was not retained to defend the lady.” 

Mr. Hardinge. ‘‘ I have no fee in my pocket to de- 
fend her ; but I have a feeling in my heart — a feeling 
such as every man has in his heart, when he sees a wo- 
man, whose sufferings should make her sacred, unneces- 
sarily put upon the rack. Your Honor, it is question- 
able, bringing her here at all. But, since she is here, let 
us be merciful to her. Why, your Honor, any man upon 
that jury may think for himself how would he treat 
the mother of his little child that had died ; died 
peacefully, and by natural causes, in her arms, when 
everything had been done to save it. At the end of 
four short weeks, would he not think she did bravely, 
if she consented to see a few dear friends that came to 
mourn with her ; if she went down-stairs, and, in the 
seclusion of her home, went again about her ordinary 
duties ? And if he persuaded her to go out with him 
once more into the sun that would never shine again 
upon her baby, would lie not take her into green and 
quiet lanes, or drive with her where they would meet 


BEING DULY SWORN. 


249 


fewest people ? It is only four weeks — and tliink of 
this young mother, after her unspeakable bereavement, 
called to face this crowd of strangers! The law de- 
mands no such sacrifice. I would rather let ten mur- 
derers go free, than have upon my conscience the in- 
flicting of such torture.” 

Mr. Bell. ‘‘ Your Honor, I’ll make a bargain with 
the gentleman, for whose tenderness of heart I was not 
prepared. If he will waive the cross-examination of 
this witness, I will stop at the point I am now, and 
engage not to recall her.” 

Mr. Mardinge. “ That will not be possible ” 

Mr. Bell (interrupting). “ Sir, you are hoist with 
your own petard. My question did not please you \ 
that was all the trouble. I appeal to your Honor to 
sustain me, and let the examination go on.” 

Mr. Mardinge. “ I will agree to confine myseK to 
just half the questions you have asked already, if you 
wdll waive the direct examination.” 

Mr. Bell. “ I will agree to nothing of the sort. 
Your Honor, am I at liberty to insist upon the answer 
to my question ?” 

The Judge. “ I must sustain the objection made 
by the defense. The witness is excused from answer- 
ing what calls simply for the statement of what existed 
in her mind.’’ 

Mr. Bell (resuming). “ Did he ever ask you to 
marry him ?” 

“ I don’t know — I understood that he — desired me 
to.” 

“ Did you tell him that you would marry him, ex- 
cept for the obstacle presented by youi- children?” 


250 


BEING DULY BWOEN. 


“ Did lie say to you that he knew that they stood 
between you 

“ Something like that.” 

“ Did you deny it 

“ I didn’t deny it, or affirm it.” 

“ Didn’ t you. allow the impression on his mind that 
such was the case ?” 

‘‘ I don’t know what his impression was.” 

“ Didn’t he appear to continue to believe it ?” 

“ I don’t know ; he didn’t refer to it again.” 

What reason did you give for not accepting him ?” 

“ I don’t remember giving any.” 

“ Did vou tell him you didn’t like him ?” 

‘‘No.” 

“ Didn’t you give him any reason ?” 

“ I don’t remember giving any.” 

“ Simply that you would not ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Had you known all summer that he wanted to 
marry you ?” 

Mr. Hardinge rescued me from this ; and Mr. 
Bell, not well pleased with his progress, turned from 
this part of his programme. 

“ After you were left by the prisoner on the night 
of the second of September, did you stay on the balcony 
till the hour stated by the witness, Sophia Atkinson f ’ 
“I did.” 

“ How were you occupied ?” 

“ I was doing nothing.” 

“ From nine to nearly half-past twelve ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ "Wliere were you when you heard the scream given 
by this witness 


BEING DULY 8W0EN. 


251 


“ In the parlor.” 

“ State what she said to you when she came from 
the nursery.” 

“ She said, ‘ Come and see your lover’s work,’ or 
words like that.” 

“ Did you go ?” 

“ She caught my hand and took me with her.” 

I was growing so white that every one looked 
alarmed ; Sophia darted from her seat, and held the 
salts up to me ; Colonel Emlyn gave me a glass of 
water, with which the zealous deputy had been armed 
since I went upon the stand. It had grown warm from 
being so long poured out, and made me feel a little 
sick. 

“ Not to harrow your feelings,” said the prosecut- 
ing attorney, a little conscience-stricken, “ I will rest 
here, simply asking you if the witness Sophia Atkin- 
son’s testimony was heard by you, and if you fully cor- 
roborate it ; I mean, as concerns the condition of the 
room, and the appearance of the children as they lay 

“ I heard what she said ; it was all correct.” 

Yery well. Then I have nothing further to ask.” 
And he sat down. 

I don’t Imow whether it was the judge, or who, of- 
fered me a respite for a little while, till I should be able 
to go on : I felt very confused and ill for a moment or 
two, but the opening of a window, and perhaps the 
salts, made me feel better. I said earnestly : 

I want them to go on ; I am able to answer.” 

This was repeated to the judge by Colonel Emlyn, and 
by him to Mr. Hardinge, who left his place and came 
nearer to me. I t/ink he wanted to get where I could 
see the expression of his eye. He probably perceived 


252 


BEING DULY SWOEN. 


that, by reason of my weakness, I could scarcely see any 
distance from me ; my body fell so far behind my mind 
in this dire strait. This gentleman knew his opponent’s 
witnesses much better than he knew them himself. Of 
course, being summoned by the prosecution, I had never 
had an interview with him. I felt that he saw every- 
thing in my mind. I was never so entirely under the 
influence of any one before. He held me with his eye ; 
lie guided me almost without the interpretation of words. 
Mind-reading will never seem wonderful to me after 
this. 

I saw, by a certain tension of the muscles of his 
mouth, that he felt the moment critical. A strength 
came to me with the knowledge; my illness and faint- 
ness were all passed away. 

“ I will not trouble you with many questions,” he 
said, deferentially and quietly. “ I would first ask you 
to make clear to me one or two things in the bearing of 
the prisoner. Have you observed him to be a high- 
tempered man, ready to take oflense, easily made angry 

“ Ho, it seems to me not.” 

“Was he irritable and passionate with his pupils 
and with little children, or the reverse ?” 

“ The reverse.” 

“ Have yon ever seen him under the influence of 
gi’eat disappointment, acute sufiering ?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Did it make him morose, angry — what we would 
call a dangerous man 
“Ho.” 

“ Did it give him the appearance of a man who was 
lesperate, reckless ?” 

Before he had finished the sentence, he saw from 


BEING DULY SWORN. 


253 


my eyes he was going wrong ; he adroitly changed it 
into “ reckless of the rights of others, bent upon revenge 
or success in his own way 

“ I cannot say he seemed so to me.” 

“ IN^ow, I must ask you to revert to the evening of 
the second of September. After he had left you, you 
went directly to the balcony V 

“Yes.” 

“ From where you sat, could you have heard any 
one moving about in the house ?” 

“ In the parlor I could. I doubt whether I could 
have heard anything in the rear of the house.” 

“You heard nothing then from within the house?” 

“ nothing.” 

“nothing from without, about the premises?” 

“Yes, once.” 

“ Please tell me about it.” 

“ It was not long after I heard the whistle of the 
train, and saw the lights pass out of sight, I heard a 
slight rustling in the bushes by the gate ; then in a mo- 
ment I heard the latch lifted very softly, and dropped 
again as if some one were trying not to make a noise.” 

“ That was all ?” 

“ That was all.” 

“ You heard no steps, no voices, nothing ?” 

“ nothing. 

“You heard nothing further all the evening?” 

“ nothing.” 

“ Was the night still ?” 

“ Yery still.” 

“ You are very positive about this noise ?” 

“ Yery positive. It startled me. I got up and went 
to the dining-room window tc see if Sophia were stiH 


254 


BEING DULY SWORN. 


there. I thought she might have gone down through 
the kitchen and out for something. I knew Matilda 
was in bed. Sopliia was sitting by the lamp, sewing. 
I saw she had not heard it, for she had not even looked 
up. Then I went and sat down again by the railing, 
but I heard nothing more.” 

“ This was about what hour 

“ The train should have gone at nine fifteen. It 
was ten minutes late. I heard the sounds at the gate, I 
should say, about ten minutes after that. I cannot be 
positive, of course, but it was not long after.” 

The relief and satisfaction in Mr. Hardinge’s eyes, I 
hope was not apparent to any one but me. 

“ At what hour did you go into the parlor ?” 

“ It was after twelve.” 

“ Tell me something about the occurrences of the 
next half hour, if you are able : I mean, prior to your 
going to the nursery with Sophia.” 

‘‘ I sat still, and heard Sophia go about and shut the 
doors and mndows. The lamp had gone out and I was 
sitting in the darkness. Sophia came into the room- 
several times ; I knew she wanted me to go to bed. I 
heard her go up-stairs to Matilda’s room. She came 
down and shut the window in the open chamber be- 
tween the rooms. Then I heard her go to the door of 
the kitchen stairs. She found it unbolted, and made 
an angry exclamation, something about Matilda. She 
slid the bolt as if she were vexed.” 

“You remember this distinctly?” 

“ As clearly as possible.” 

“This door shuts ofi all communication with the 
lower part of the house ?” 

“ Yes.” 


BEING DULY SWORN. 


255; 


“ Then it had been open all the evening 

“ I suppose so. The Indian woman must have left 
it unfastened when she came up-stairs : neither Sophia 
nor I had been in that part of the house since she went 
up to bed.” 

“Did you say anything when Sophia made this 
exclamation 

“!N^o, she did not address herself to me; it was 
simply an exclamation of annoyance at Matilda.” 

“ You were quite wide awake at this time?” 

“ Oh, yes ; that was the reason I did not want to go 
to bed. I knew I could not get asleep.” 

“ After, wlien Sopliia appeared in the door-way, and 
gave you the alarm, will you try and remember exactly 
the expression that she used ?” 

“ She said, ‘ Come and see your lover’s work.’ She 
said it over and over wildly. I could not forget it ; it 
was always iii my mind for many days.” 

“ Did her statement have any influence upon you ?” 

Objected to. 

“ Did she repeat it to others at that time ?” 

“ In the course of that night and during the follow- 
ing day, I heard her say things to the same effect be- 
fore other people.” 

“ She then showed a strong prejudice against the 
prisoner?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ How long had she expressed aversion to him ?” 

“ From the time that he began to come to the house 
as a frequent visitor.” 

“ Had she ever expressed open enmity to him ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Mention some instance.” 


256 


BEING DULY SWORN. 


“ The day before she told me she should leave the 
house if he came into it again.” 

‘‘ Had he ever given her a cause for feeling so ?” 

“ Hot intentionally, I think.” 

“ Had he ever said anything to indicate enmity to 
her?” 

I never heard anything of the kind.” 

“ Those are all the questions I shall have to ask you 
now,” he said, bowing, and returning to his place. 


CHAPTEE XX. 


FOR AND AGAINST. 

When thou fearest, 

God is nearest.” 

T he next morning the attorney for the prosecntion 
called first Colonel Emlyn, and then his wife. The 
design was evidently to obtain from them proof of the 
utter ignorance they were in concerning the antecedents 
i the prisoner. He also drew out from Colonel Emlyn 
that he was not on good terms with the prisoner when 
they parted, but no question was asked which would 
permit the witness to explain the cause of the estrange- 
ment. He also obtained from him that the prisoner 
was a man of resolution, force ; that he carried out his 
purposes ; that he maintained authority in the school- 
room. The direct examination was short ; the cross- 
examination established the good character of the pris- 
oner, his uniformly irreproachable conduct during the 
ten months he had been in their house ; his gentle- 
ness, his courtesy, his rather unusual aversion to giving 
pain, his forbearance with the faults of children. Mrs. 
Emlyn vehemently threw in several inadmissible state- 
ments, which were not accepted as evidence, but which 
may have had their effect upon the jury. Colonel Emlyn 
was told to state the cause of the coolness which existed 
between the prisoner and himself at the time of his 

[ 257 ] 


258 


FOR AND AGAINST. 


leaving tlie house. He answered, it was because he did 
not want to part with him ; he considered his going a 
6(irions loss to the children ; he desired to retain him 
for at least two years longer in his family. He was 
ashed to state the reason given by the prisoner for his 
abrupt departure. He had given no reason. The wit- 
ness had his theory for it, but was not allowed to state it. 

The next witness called was the post-master of the 
village. He testified to an interview with the prisoner 
early in June, in which the prisoner had given him a 
slip of paper, containing a name which he had forgot- 
ten, saying to him, that if any letters came to that ad- 
dress, he would oblige him by laying them aside, and 
giving them to him personally. He had received the 
impression that the prisoner had meant him to be 
silent about it, though he could not recall anything that 
he had said to that effect. He had treated the matter 
confidentially, and had not spoken of it till he heard 
about the murder. Two or three letters had come to 
the address given him; he had put them aside and 
handed them personally to the prisoner. That was in 
the early part of the summer. Since then, no letters 
had come to that address. The prisoner’s letters latterly 
had come two or three in one envelope, with double 
postage, as if inclosed and forwarded to him from some 
point. They were invariably addressed Bernard Mac- 
nally, and, as far as he could recollect, were in one 
handwriting. He was unable to recall the name on the 
slip of paper the prisoner had handed him ; the paper 
had been mislaid ; he had searched in vain for it. He 
should know the name if he heard it. It was a long 
name ; there were several initials. As the letters had 
ceased to come, he had not minded anything about it ; 


FOR AND AGAINST. 


259 


he had a poor memory for names. The letters that had 
come to the address given him had been foreign letters, 
from somewhere in Great Britain. He could not be 
sure of anything else. He had noticed at the time, but 
had forgotten. 

The cross-examination was short and unimportant. 
Though the post-master hadn’t a strong memory for 
names, he was not weak in other things, and Mr. Har- 
dinge could not get anything out of him but what he 
chose to say. He admitted that the occurrence was not 
without precedent. That he had on more than one 
occasion had the same favor asked him by perfectly re- 
spectable young men, but that he had known that it was 
just some “ lark,” and that there wasn’t any deception 
meant that would do anybody any harm. 

Then Sophia Atkinson was recalled, and was shown 
a pocket-handkerchief, and asked if she had ever seen 
it before. She testified that she had, that she had seen 
it on her mistress’ throat, and afterwards found it on 
the dressing-table in her mistress’ room ; that she knew 
it to be the property of the prisoner, from her mistress 
mentioning it as such, and making search for it. It was 
not at all like any handkerchief that any one in the 
house owned. She could read the initials worked on 
it, but she didn’t know how they went in order. The 
letters were L. M. C. B. or M. C. B. L., or any way 
you chose to put them. 

Mr. Hardinge made it appear, on the cross-examina- 
tion, that she had purloined the handkerchief, and kept 
it concealed, notwithstanding the many inquiries that 
had been made for it. 

Penelope Emlyn, recalled, was shown a book, and 
asked to identify it. She recognized it as a book which 


260 


FOE AND AGAINST. 


she had seen in the prisoner’s possession. It had been 
brought to her by one of the children, to establish the 
fact that that day was the tutor’s birthday, and to ask 
a holiday. The prisoner had not denied that it was his 
book, nor that the day was his birthday. The words 
written on the fly-leaf were : “ To L , on his four- 

teenth birthday, with his mother’s always faithful 
love,” and the date below. The volume was a worn 
and shabby copy of the £ook of Common Prayer. 
She was asked to identify another book, a copy of the 
Tragedies of Euripides^ from which a portion of the 
fly-leaf was cut out. This book had been lent her by 
the prisoner, as well as many others. Several of them 
had no name at all written in them. In many, there 
was a mutilation of the fly-leaf, as in this. She was 
not cross-examined. 

The Indian cook, Matilda, was next summoned. 
She was much agitated, and gave a confused account of 
the incidents of the night. On the direct examination, 
she testifled to having closely attended to shutting up 
the kitchen, and bolting the door of the kitchen stairs 
when she went up to bed. She described my coming 
to her and rousing her, and sending her out to call the 
neighbors. Her account of the finding of the children’s 
bodies was unimportant and confused. 

On the cross-examination she admitted that she was 
dreadfully tired and sleepy; that she had actually 
dropped asleep sitting by the fire ; that the striking of 
the clock roused her, and she started up, and took the 
candle and went away up-stairs, hardly knowing what 
she did, for fear of being scolded by Sophia, who had 
told her she must go to bed as soon as she had done her 
work. She admitted she was afraid of Sophia, who 


FOR AlHD AGAINST. 


261 ’ 


scolded her “ cg asiderable.” She couldn’t say whether 
she fastened the outside kitchen door or not ; whether 
she bolted the stair doo^* after her or not ; she was just 
dead sleepy ; she hadn’t slept hardly any the night be- 
fore ; she dropped asleep almost before she got undressed 
when she got up-stairs ; when her mistress woke her, 
she still had half her clothes on ; she knew what an 
oath was ; she had been converted ; she went to meet- 
ing regularly ; nothing would tempt her to tell a lie if 
she knew what she was doing. That was the reason 
that she wouldn’t swear (again) that she had fastened 
up the doors, because she couldn’t tell for sure. 

Here the prosecution rested their case and Mr. Har- 
dinge opened his. 

His first witness was the baggage-master at the South 
Berwick station. He testified to the checking of the 
baggage by young Emlyn, and to the arrival of the 
prisoner, who reached the station at sixteen minutes 
after nine. He said to the prisoner, “ You’d have been 
left, if the train had been on time.” The prisoner had 
answered, “ Ho, I shouldn’t, I was listening for the whis- 
tle all the time. I should have hurried ; if it had blown 
while I was half a mile off, I could have caught it.” 
The ^ain was late ten minutes. He walked up and 
down the platform, talking with young Emlyn, some- 
times stopping and talking with him and with some 
other men who were standing about. He was grave, 
and didn’t seem in his usual spirits, but he was bound 
to say, he didu' t seem “ fiustered,” or like a man who had 
just been committing a crime, and was getting out of 
reach of justice as fast as he knew how. 

The witness was riglrt in saying “ he was bound to 
testify thus, and so.” He was bound by his sturdy, 


262 


FOE AND AGAEiTST. 


Fober-minded, American conscience, and not by any 
predilection for the prisoner. In fact, the defence had 
this great disadvantage all the way through. The pre- 
judice against Macnally was bitter. South Berwick 
was in a part of the country where few Irish had 
settled, and those of the lowest class. There was a 
jealousy of intrusion that is only seen in such isolated 
neighborhoods. The population was almost without 
exception native ; they were thrifty and intelligent, and 
looked with scant favor upon the coming of strangers, 
even of their own nationality. Colonel Emlyii had 
overcome this feeling by his unassuming ways, liberality 
and common sense, and was at the end of four or five 
years looked upon as a worthy and important member 
of their small community. But Macnally had never 
been a favorite — they didn’t know how to take him. 
They weren’t used to jokes, being stolid and shy. His 
merriment seemed to them a disrespect. They were 
jealous of an Irishman who dared to walk as he pleased 
over their sacred soil. Sophia’s bitter tongue had not 
been idle. Ho trifling pleasantry of his about the 
rural population was allowed to rest with one telling. 
The stories circulated, and the prejudices roused were 
numberless. It was from a community so affected that 
Mr. Hardinge had to recruit his witnesses. They 
seemed like “ Spanish volunteers,” led along in chains. 
I began to see that he would have to spin much of his 
web of evidence out of his own clever brain. 

The next witness was the conductor, who knew the 
prisoner quite well by sight; thought he might have 
spoken to him sometimes at the station as his train 
passed through. He had all summer known his name ; 
known he was the tutor living at Colonel Emlyn’s. lie 


FOR AOTJ AGAINST. 


263 


noticed nothing special in his manner on the night of 
the second of September ; except that he didn’t go to 
sleep as the other passengers had done. The train was 
an honr and forty minutes late, owing to a freight train 
running off the track. He had been awake whenever 
he came to him to punch his ticket ; he remembered 
particularly the last time when he came through the 
car ; the prisoner had his ticket in his teeth ; a little 
piece was gnawed off of it. 

“When I looked at it he laughed and said, ‘Your 
train goes so confounded slow, we shall have to make 
our breakfast off our tickets.’ He didn’t seem in a 
hurry, no: he looked to me like a man who was in 
trouble more than like a man who was afraid. He 
was wide awake and knew what he was about though ; 
he was in the train the last station that we passed be- 
fore we entered the city. I took his ticket then, and 
that’s the last I’ve seen of him till I saw him here in 
court.” 

The cross-examination did not make much of him. 
He admitted there was something about the prisoner 
that made him notice him, but he was in the habit of 
noticing the faces of his passengers. He didn’t look 
like a man that was running away ; he was bound to 
say that wasn’t the impression that he made on him. 
He couldn’t say exactly how a man that was running 
away would look : he should think he might look hurried 
and restless. This one didn’t look that way : he wasn’t 
ooking behind him, and opening and shutting windows, 
and watching who got in at every station. He looked 
tired and used up, and yet as if his mind was too full 
cf some trouble to let him go to sleep. 

The next upon the stand was the telegraph messen- 


264 


FOE AND AGAINST. 


ger who handed the prisoner a dispatch from Colonel 
Emlyn, as he stepped out of the car at the depot. Ho 
testified to the consternation and agitation of the pris- 
oner when he read the message. He staggered, and the 
witness thought he would have fallen if he had not put 
out his hand, and helped him to a seat. He seemed 
dazed, astounded. He took the paper and tried to read 
it for the second time, hut seemed to be very faint and 
ill ; then he handed it to the messenger and said — “ Head 
it to me — I must have made some mistake— read it 
slowly — I want to understand.” The witness read it to 
him — it was as follows : 

“ The two children at the cottage found murdered 
in their beds an hour ago. Come instantly back. Take 
my advice — come back voluntarily ; it will be in your 
favor, if you do. — Edward Emlyn.” 

The witness described his pallor and consternation, 
his sending him to the ticket-office to see what was the 
earhest train back, his anxiety to know at what hour 
exactly the dispatch was dated. 

The cross-examiner asked how he dared to go to the 
ticket-office and leave him, seeing, by the despatch, 
that he was a suspected person. 

“ I kept my eye on him,” said the astute messenger, 
determined not to have his shrewdness doubted. 

The attorney for the prosecution wished, sarcasti- 
cally, that all the witnesses for the defence might be as 
strongly persuaded of the prisoner’s innocence, and dis- 
missed him. 

The officer who arrested him was the next brought 
forward. He had received the dispatch, at the Cen- 
tral Office, just twenty minutes before the arrival of 
the train. He had made ail possible haste to get to the 


FOR AND AGAINST. 


265 


depot, and liad entered it just as tlie passengers were 
coming, in a body, through the gateway, from the cars. 
If the train had been on time, there would have been no 
hope. He spotted his man in an instant, from the de- 
scription he had had. He saw the messenger go up to 
him with the dispatch, and knew somebody had got 
before him, and had given him warning. So he came 
close, and stood ready to prevent escape, if he at- 
tempted it. But he corroborated the former witness’s 
account of his amazed and overwhelmed condition, and 
the lack of evidence to show any inclination to escape. 

On cross-examination, he said he must acknowledge 
he had arrested prisoners who were just as innocent 
appearing, and who had turned out the worst sort of 
scamps. He could believe anything of prisoners, 
pretty much, he said ; classing them, evidently, in his 
mind, in not the most discriminating way. 

After awhile the prisoner had got over his shock, 
and had seemed to take in the situation and to rouse 
himself ; and he had never seen him give way since 
then, much as he had seen of him. 

Yes, he acknowledged on the cross-examination that 
he was of Irish parentage ; he wasn’t ashamed of it either ; 
he didn’t care what the prisoner was, he was a perfect 
gentleman. 

Don’t you think all Irishmen are perfect gentle- 
men ?” said the prosecuting lawyer. Which wasn’t evi- 
dence, but which was effective. 

After he left the stand, I was recalled. I wasn’t 
expecting it at the moment, and was a little agitated, 
but soon recovered my composure. Mr. Hardinge again 
came near the stand and spoke in a lower voice than 
when he questioned the others. He said : 


266 


FOR AND AGAINST. 


“ T made it a point to ask you as little as possible 
about the details of your going in the nursery that night, 
after Sophia gave you the alarm. I now find myself 
obliged to ask you, did you find anything deranged 
about the room, excepting, of course, the condition of 
the cribs 

“ I do not remember anything displaced ; it may 
have been so, easily, and I not have seen it, in the state 
of mind in which I was.” 

Did you find anything out of order in any other 
room ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Tell me about it, if you please.” 

“ Sophia dropped the light as she fell ; I had to 
grope about to find the matches. I went across to my 
own room, and stumbled over something lying near the 
door. When I got the matches and struck one, I found 
it was a footstool that generally stood beside my closet 
door. It was dragged out from its place and lay over- 
turned near the entrance to the room. The first 
thought that I had, was that some one had been 
robbing the closet, but I did not think of it a sec- 
ond time. I don’t know whether anything was out of 
order in that closet ; every thought was for the other 
room.” 

“Was anything missing from any other room upon 
that fioor ?” 

“ There was something missing from the nursery. 
It was not anything of any value to — to any one out- 
side.” 

“ Describe it, if you please ?” 

“ It was a toy — ^belonging to the youngest child— 
and one of her little shoes cannot be found.” 


FOB AND AGAINST. 


267 


“ Where was the toy kept, and what was it 

“ It was broken ; a little toy lamb — with a beU 
around its neck — the Baby would never go to sleep 
unless she had it in her arms — it was in her arms that 
evening, when — when — I saw her last alive.” 

“ You — ” began the lawyer. 

“I cannot talk about it — let me go,” I exclaimed, 
getting up and making a step forward, overcome by an 
anguish that was uncontrollable. 

Sophia darted forward to my help. 

“ Let me go — let me go out,” I said, “ I cannot beai 
it any longer.” 

The lawyer pushed between her and me, and helped 
me down the step from the witness-stand, and sup- 
ported me through the clerks and lawyers, past the 
prisoner, out into an ante-room. As he went he man- 
aged to whisper a few words in my ear, the only ones 
that I ever had the chance of having with him through 
the whole trial. 

I lay down on the hard settee in the ante-room. 1 
would not go away ; but lay and listened to the prog- 
ress of the case, which I could hear with tolerable dis- 
tinctness. The defence had, one after another, three 
South Berwick men on the stand. They testified, 
with very fair unanimity, to the seeing at various times 
during daylight of September second, a man unknown 
to the neighborhood, corresponding to the description of 
the tramp who ate his bread and butter outside the 
kitchen door of the cottage, in the morning. The last 
time he was seen was just before twilight, by a fisher- 
man, w^ho was coming up from one of the fish-houses 
on the beach, below the Old Town Pond. The witness 
had been there to stow away a seine he had been 


268 


FOR AND AGAINST. 


mending ; he was coming up the road when he noticed 
tlie man striking off towards the lane that debouches 
in the farm-yard of the cottage. He noticed him par- 
ticularly ; he thought he was a rough-looking chap ; he 
wondered where he came from. He didn’t speak of it 
to any one ; it passed out of his mind. He didn’t con- 
nect it with the mm^der, even when he heard of it next 
day. 

“Why?” 

Well, he supposed it was because he heard right 
off who it was that was arrested. There didn’t seem 
to be any doubt about who did it. He didn’t recall 
the tramp to his mind till a good deal later ; tramps 
weren’t such an unusual sight — he wished they were. 
They didn’t often get as far down the Island as South 
Berwick, but they weren’t a rarity enough to keep a 
man awake at night if he had seen one through the 
day. It wasn’t strange he hadn’t thought of it ; in his 
opinion it wouldn’t have made much difference if he 
hadn’t ever thought of it. He was informed that his 
opinion wasn’t demanded by the court. He was an 
aggressive witness; it wasn’t difficult to get him to 
admit that he’d hang every Irishman in Sutphen 
county if he had a fair excuse. For all tliat, he wasn’t 
to be shaken about the tramp ; “ he was bound to say,” 
the tramp was going through the lane towards the cot- 
tage just before twilight, on the second of September. 
There was a good deal more, but this was the substance 
of it in the main. And here the case for the defence 
was rested 


CHAPTEE XXI. 


COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENCE. 


' For one minute he turned his eye round on the throng^ 
An’ he looked at the bars, so firm and so strong, 

An’ he saw that he had not a hope nor a friend, 

A chance to escape, nor a word to defend ; 

An’ he folded his arms as he stood there alone, 

As calm and as cold as a statue of stone. ” 


Samuel Lover. 



E were late tlie next morning in getting away 


▼ ▼ from tlie hotel. Mr. Hardinge had already be- 
gun his summing-up, when we came into the court- 
room. There were more people there than ever : not 
an inch of standing room was vacant ; men were sitting 
even on the ledges of the windows, but the utmost 
silence reigned, and the most perfect order. Outside 
it was a matchless October day ; through the windows, 
none too clear, came in t]\e cheerful sunshine. The air 
inside was as yet comparatively good. The windows 
were open from the top, and the outer door was but 
half shut. Macnally lifted his eyes at the stir of our 
entrance from the ante-room, but they fell again, and 
he did not look at us. From where he sat to where I 
^id was not twelve feet ; yet I had never met his eye. 
Generally some one was between us ; but to-day we were 
almost face to face, except that, as he sat, his profile was 
always turned towards us ; he faced a little towards the 
witness-stand and towards the jury. Mr. Hardinge was 
speaking, standing just beside him. His eyes were on 


[ 269 ] 


270 


COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENCE. 


the ground, but his face expressed intent attention. 
He was pale as the dead, but his still face and fixed at- 
titude expressed the intensest mental force and. fife, I 
don’t know how. 

The first of Mr. Hardinge’s speech, as I have said, 
was lost to us ; when I began to listen, he was saying 
this: 

“ The importance of this case I cannot over-state. 
To you men of Sutphen county, it is the gravest duty 
that ever came before you. The records tell us that it 
is a hundred years since the death penalty has been en- 
forced in this peaceful, law-abiding place. A century 
of peace ! the heavens have smiled upon you. Do rot 
rashly break the spell. I know I need not ask you to 
deliberate, to weigh each word, to sift each argumert. 
I am speaking to men who are used to deliberation ard 
to thought ; the tenor of your lives has taught it to you, 
the very blood in your veins dictates it to you. I havci 
faced many juries in my day : if I had a weak cause I 
should say, give me anything but a jury of sturdy, so- 
ber-minded American farmers. To-day I say, thank 
Heaven I lia/oe a jury of sturdy, sober-minded Ameri 
can farmers, men who can’t be bent by prejudice to sa} 
that right is wrong, even if the right isn’t what thej 
like ; men who can throw down the gauntlet to the world 
and say, we abide by the written law and by the spoken 
truth. 

“ Gentlemen of the jury, I stand before you to-day 
to plead for one who is separated from you in many 
ways. He is an alien by birth ; he is of a nation you 
do not hold in favor. The bulk of his fellow-country- 
men estabhshed in America are your political opponenta 
His education has been different ; his way of life has been 


COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENCE. 


271 


different; liis religious creed is different. What shall 
I say ? Has not God made of one blood all the nations 
of the earth? Is he not a man for a’ that ? Will you 
let him suffer at your hands because he isn’t of your 
blood ? ‘ The stranger that d welleth with you shall be unto 
you as one born among you ; * * for ye were strangers 
in the land of Egypt.’ I ask more mercy for him be- 
cause he is a stranger ; I ask you to discard prejudices 
that are inherent in most of us ; I ask you to do him 
justice, as perhaps you would ask to have justice done to 
some sailor lad of yours, cast by fate into a foreign prison. 

“ Gentlemen, this case has been cruelly prejudged and 
falsified ; when I have shown you all, I think you will 
agree with me. Let me begin by putting before you 
the theory of the prosecution, and by pointing out a few 
of its weak points. You are asked to believe that this 
man before you has murdered the innocent and beauti- 
ful children of the woman whom he loved, because he 
was persuaded that they stood between him and the at- 
tainment of her hand. They represent him to you as 
sane, as resolute ; they do not even ask you to believe it 
was in transport of rage, because, sometimes, one is sorry 
for a man whose sufferings drive him to extremity, and 
because high-tempered jurymen might have some sym- 
pathy for such a one. Ho, he has done it deliberately, 
he has plotted and planned, he is a devil in man’s shape ; 
be has belied all that has been known of him, all hie 
goodness and lightheartedness; he commits this mon- 
strous crime, and he goes away, meaning, forsooth, to 
come back and marry the mother when her days of 
mourning shall be ended. Gentlemen, I won’t affront 
your intelligence by much dwelling on a theory like 
this. One asks naturally for a motive for the commis- 


272 


COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENCE. 


Bion of such a crime. There was every motive that he 
should not commit it. The prosecution declares that 
she returned his affection ; that perhaps his poverty and 
her desire to devote her means and all her time to the 
care and education of these children, prevented her 
from marrying him. If her affection for them living 
was too great to be overcome by all his passion, what 
would her love for them be, dead by such a cruel death 
as this ? If there was a gulf between them before, 
there would be an ocean now. There is no room for 
such a theory in any man’s mind. I declare it to be 
utterly preposterous. 

“ Let us look at the evidence, and see how it is sus- 
tained. The prisoner is shown to you, by the testimony 
of all the witnesses, even the woman Sophia, as uni- 
formly gentle, gentlemanly, affectionate to children, 
tender-hearted, Iceenly averse to giving pain ; it was 
impossible from his temperament for him to have done 
this deed. The mother of these children trusted him, 
enjoyed his society ; ‘ I was glad to have him for my 
friend,’ she says, in her testimony. I should believe 
she was a woman not easily deceived ; her instincts are 
fine ; she has keen, womanly discernment. What if she 
cannot love him ? ‘ Love comes unsought, unsent.’ 

Perhaps her heart is in the grave. She cannot return 
his affection ; she has to deal this blow, but you may be 
sure she does it gently. Let us look at the character of 
the woman Sophia. She loves her mistress — apparently 
most people love her who come near her — but she is 
consumed with a jealous hatred of the young tutor ; 
she sees in him a suitor from the first. She dreads a 
master in the little household. I am afraid she has 
been mistress, and ruled it with an iron rule. TJib 


COUNSEL FOE THE DEFENCE. 


273 


young housekeeper and mother yields to her judgment 
in all things, lets her manage matters as she will in the 
menage. It would not suit Sophia to have a master 
enter ; she wdll fight against it. She doesn’t mind the 
weapons that she fights with. She does all she can to 
prejudice her mistress, but she makes little headway 
here. Her mistress, with all her gentleness, knows her 
own mind upon the subject, and, we may well believe, 
keeps her own counsel, too. You have heard the his- 
tory of the pocket-handkerchief. Hesdemona’s didn’t 
pass through hands more treacherous ; she steals it from 
her mistress’ room, hides it till she sees a fitting mo- 
ment to produce it to the prisoner’s hurt. She isn’t 
above eavesdropping either, this estimable servant. 
She can pry not only into her lady’s boxes and drawers, 
but into her secrets, too. She listens outside the parlor 
window, to the broken-hearted lover, who goes away 
forever from the woman who likes but cannot love 
him, who pities, but who cannot help him. She sees his 
pallor, his agitation ; she gloats upon his wretchedness. 
Crouched down, gazing through the blind-door, she 
reports to us his manner and appearance, as he went for 
the last time out of the little cottage, where, for a 
aappy summer, he has fed his hopes. Trusty, faithful 
creature ! She can swear falsely, too, or forget amaz- 
mgly. Recall her testimony about the stair door, left un- 
k..olted. Two witnesses, her mistress and Matilda, prove 
her false about it. Then remember the brutal words 
with which she fiings the awful tidings into the poor 
young mother’s face. ‘ Come and see your lover’s 
woi’k !’ Even in that appalling moment, when her 
nurslings lie dead before her, her consuming hatred 
rises up above all other feelings ; one can almost be- 


274 


COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENCE. 


lieve the Scripture story of demoniacal possession acted 
over in the nineteenth century. 

I ask you to put at its true value the testimony of 
a witness ruled by such a deadly passion. I deny that 
she can see even the smallest detail in an unbiassed 
light. Hatred and jealousy, such as she stands con- 
victed of, put her out of the pale of public confidence. 
I ask you to throw out her testimony, and to render 
yom" verdict as if she had not spoken. 

“ Of the medical testimony I must speak briefly. 
The professional gentlemen have told you the causes of 
the death of the two children. They agree that, while 
life might be extinguished in three minutes, it is difli- 
cult to imagine such dexterity, such cold-bloodedness. 
The prisoner, having said his last good-bye to the 
mother, just on the threshold turns back, and says: 
‘ Mayn’t I go in and look at the children before I go V 
Their room is on the same floor. He knows the ways 
about the quaint little cottage ; he goes in to give them 
a good-bye kiss, for he is going from America forever 
on the morrow. The hands of the clock point at five 
minutes before nine ; the lady notices it, the maid no- 
tices it ; they think that he will miss his train. They 
are both within call. Fancy him going through that 
deadly work, not knowing at what instant the nurse’s 
black eyes may gleam in upon him! He has three 
minutes to make sure that both are dead. He comes 
out cool and steady, passes through the hall, past the 
mother, past the stealthy nurse, out into the street, and 
takes his way coolly to the train, to miss which is to 
meet death. Escape is all his thought now. Does he 
hurry ? Does he come, pale and panting, on the plat- 
form steps ? You have heard the testimony of the rail- 


COUNSEL FOE THE DEFExTCE. 275 

road employees. Ko man was ever cooler, graver, 
quieter. They start. The train is delayed on the way 
nearly two hours. Does that fire him with impatience ? 
Why does he not spring ofi at some of the many halting- 
places, and strike ofi across the country, reach the coast, 
and get away upon some out-boimd vessel? Gentle- 
men, I will not waste your time over such a theory as 
this ; it is too palpable a folly. 

“ Let us go back to the cottage, where the young 
mother- sits, thoughtful and silent, on the dark balcony. 
She is thinking of many things ; of the sorrow that 
she has had to cause ; of the pleasant Summer that has 
ended in pain to one whom she has cared for and re- 
spected ; she thinks of her children ; she feels she has 
her little brood under her wings, though the night is 
dark and somber. Perhaps her mind goes into the 
past, recalling a face and voice that she will never see 
and hear but in dreams again. No wonder she is ab- 
sorbed ; no wonder that the light sounds of the intruder’s 
tread in the darkened rooms beyond the parlor escape 
her ear. The lynx-eyed nurse has left her post ; sha 
has gone to the front window, and is stealthily gazing 
out upon her mistress, wondering what her feelings 
are, now that she has sent away her lover. No wonder 
that she heard nothing; she is absorbed indeed. At 
what moment the tramp entered from the barn, where 
since twiliglit he probably had been concealed, it is difii- 
cult to say. It seems probable to me he followed shortly 
after the sleepy Indian woman, whom he had been 
watching through the windoAv. He opens the kitchen 
door, steals across it, follows the woman through the 
stair door with which he had acquainted himself in the 
morning. He gropes about and enters the first door he 


276 


COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENCE. 


finds, wliicli is that of the lady’s bed-room. "While 
searching for plunder here, he hears a step ; it is Mac- 
nally’s, going to the children’s bedside. He hastily 
conceals himself inside the closet. In a few minutes 
the step goes out, silence reigns again. He steals out, 
across the dark, open chamber, into the room where the 
children lie asleep. He busies himself in searching 
about for money or valuables ; he is not a practiced 
housebreaker ; he is a clumsy brute of a tramp ; ignorant, 
but rapacious ; probably not long in the country ; not 
familiar with the ways of households here. Some sound 
he makes near the bed of one of the children rouses her ; 
she sits up, looks around. He starts toward her ; she 
makes a little cry, which rouses the other, who stirs in 
her sleep. He is standing between the cribs ; terror 
seizes him ; if they make an outcry, he will be caught. 

‘‘ It is a short work to silence the little throats ; he is 
a coward, a brute, little better than an animal ; human 
life, so easily crushed out, seems to him little in com- 
parison with the chance of detection and a few months 
in the county jail. 'He has had enough of the attempt ; 
he is thoroughly frightened ; he stumbles his way out, 
creeps down the stairs, goes softly out the kitchen door. 
It is a very dark night ; he makes his way along the 
little path ; brushes against the lilac bushes that stand 
beside the gate. From the silent balcony above, the 
mother looks down and listens. She hears the gate 
open very softly, and then shut. She little knows who 
has passed out, and what ruin has been left behind. 
She goes forward across the balcony to see where Sophia 
is — if she has heard it. No, Sophia has resumed her 
sewing and her stolid silence. Sophia has not heard it, she 
is intent on other things than sounds like these. The 


COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENCE. 


277 


hours pass. The two sit there silent, characteristically 
employed, one in quiet retrospection, the other in sharp 
manual labor, and fierce, angry thoughts. You know 
the rest. Y on know the first words that the woman 
speaks when she beholds the appalling sight ; it is the 
index to the whole. She has a force, a power ■)f 
her own ; she bends people to her way of thinking 
in an unusual way. She is convinced in her own mind ; 
Ido not say she is not ; she leaves no room for doubt 
in any mind as to who has done the deed. She hounds 
them on to search for and arrest Macnally ; she is in 
authority, in a certain way, in the stricken house ; they 
defer to her ; no one has any other theory to oppose to 
hers ; it is as she says. And while, with vixen fury, 
she points them to the discarded lover, the brutal mur- 
derer, dull and slow of wit, goes safely oft to swamps 
and woods and bays, where he may take his time, and 
get away securely. The house was not properly 
searched ; the traces that might have been found were, 
in the confusion, lost. I do not blame the local officers 
exactly. I know what is the force and fire of such a 
woman’s tongue as this. We do not know exactly what 
things are missing from the house. In the dismay and 
anguish none of the inhabitants can tell what may have 
oeen abstracted. The mother alone has yearned for 
the little broken toy ; the mate of the little shoe that is 
now her dearest treasure. When we know where those 
two things are^ we shall know who is the murderer. Till 
they are brought into the court, gentlemen, these chil- 
dren came to their death by the hands of a person or 
pei*sons unknown. Nothing else is possible. 

There is one more point I must touch upon, gentle- 
men of the jury, and I have done. A great emphasis 


278 


COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENCE. 


is laid by the prosecution upon the fact, if it is a fact, 
that the prisoner at the bar does not give you his true 
name. They imply that he is an adventurer, a man 
whose antecedents will weigh him down if he presents 
them. They say, he dares not tell the truth about him- 
self, or he would tell it, to save him from the gallows. 
I will tell them something that he dares do ; he dares risk 
the gallows rather tlian stain, even by an accusation of 
crime, the honored name he bears. For some youthful 
folly, some petulance of home-control, he comes to 
America, and, in his new-born independence, he drops 
the surname by which he would be identified, and is 
known by his baptismal name alone. 

“ That was an unwise thing to do ; don’t let your boys 
ever do it ! It’s all very well if nothing happens, but 
if it does, see the scrape it gets one in. It looks badly. 
I acknowledge it. I have pleaded with my client to dis- 
close his family name. I might have as well have pleaded 
with Plymouth Eock. ‘ If I perish, I perish.’ I like 
the generous surrender of himself to the consequences 
of his boyish folly, but, professionally, I strongly disap- 
prove. ^ C^est magnifique^ mais ce rCest jpas la guerre^ 
He sees in fancy the agony and dismay of mother, sis- 
ter, father, when the cruel news is brought ; he thinks 
of the distance, of the long days of suspense before the 
end is reached ; he will not bring such sorrow into the 
home he never should have left; they shall never know 
he was accused of murder ; that he stood at the bar of 
justice, to plead for life; that he dragged down a 
hitherto unsullied name into the slime of criminals and 
prisons. 

“ Gentlemen, we many of us have sons. I have a boy, 
God bless him I now going through the fire of early 


coinsrsEL foe the defence. 


279 


college Kfe. I believe be is a good boy ; I believe be 
will be tbe stay and support of bis rnotber and sisters 
when I am dead and gone. But for all that, I wouldn’t 
guarantee that be’ll keep free of folly and entanglement 
while be is in bis fiery, foolisb years. I’ve paid some of 
bis debts for bim already. I am afraid I shall have to pay 
Bome more. It isn’t even on tbe books that be mayn’t 
some day take tbe bit between bis teeth, and walk ofi 
across tbe ocean with only tbe formality of bis middle 
name. If be does, and gets into a scrape, though he’s a 
good fellow, I sba’n’t expect him to show tbe pluck 
that this young fellow shows, and refuse to appeal to 
me. I’m sure he’d send a speedy telegram across tbe 
ocean, and call upon me to get bim out of bis entangle- 
ment. It would be tbe wisest way, though perhaps 
not tbe most heroic. 

“ Gentlemen, we have all been young ; let us not be 
bard upon the faults of youth. Let ns show tbe in- 
dulgence to this young stranger that we would have 
asked for ourselves ; that we would ask for our sons, if 
they should ever, by complicated imprudence and mis- 
fortune, fall into tbe strait that be has fallen into. I 
leave bis case in your bands with confidence and a senflo 
of full security.” 


CHAPTER XXII. 


COUNSEL FOE THE PROSECUTION. 

‘ ‘ All my spirits, 

As if they had heard my passing-bell go for me, 

Pull in their powers, and give me up to destiny.” 

Fletcher. 

I DREW a deep breath ; it seemed to me the matter 
was ended. I was not at the pains to listen very 
attentively when the counsel for the prosecution rose, 
and began his summing up. (Not the suffused and light- 
haired Mr. Bell, who had conducted the examinations, 
but the senior counsel ; senior, but still young.) I list- 
ened, as we listen to things of secondary moment in a 
play, when we know how it is all coming out. His 
manner was a great contrast to the other speaker’s, his 
voice a very inferior affair. He spoke conversationally, 
as if he had his finger in the button-hole of every jury- 
man. I began to see he wasn’t “ addressing them ” as 
across a gulf, but that he had a hold upon them, as 
being one of themselves ; when he sneered at the op- 
posing counsel, he sneered from their side of the fence. 
Sutphen County is famed for being very clannish ; it 
was not impossible that every juryman before him was 
more or less nearly related to him by birth or by con- 
nection. He was the rising lawyer of the county ; they 
were all proud of him. It was possible that they 
wouldn’t want to see him lose his case — a case, the like 
[ 280 ] . 


COUNSEL FOR THE PROSECUTION. 


281 


of which had iiev(3r been before the bai jf Sutphen 
County since it had been a county, and had had a bar. 

“ It’s been a ^reat treat, I’m sure,” he said. We’re 
not used to such line speaking here in this part of the 
country ; and I, for one, have been quite carried away 
by it. I’m sure I can answer for all of you, that you’ve 
been very much pleased — very much pleased. When 
we put Tom Turner up for surrogate again, we’ll know 
who to send for to stump the county for him.” (Tom 
Turner was a very weak candidate for surrogate at the 
last election, who had been overwhelmingly defeated. 
There was an audible titter.) “ I almost think I should 
vote for Tom Turner myself, if he spoke for him. I 
assure you, he quite carries me away. But, I’ll tell 
you, there’s one thing I come back to, after I’ve been 
carried away by this extraordinary tide of talk, and 
that is. Facts. And I don’t know but I’m a little stub- 
borner after I get back to them, than before, for I am 
just a trihe ashamed of myself for being taken ofi my 
feet that way. Facts, gentlemen of the jury, facts 
are what the law undertakes to deal with ; not theories, 
nor flights of fancy. 

“ISTow, this tramp business, gentlemen, you’ll excuse 
me if I call that a very decided flight of fancy. I 
shouldn’t like to call it anything else ; the counsel’s a 
stranger in these parts, and he’s anxious we should be 
particularly good to strangers. He quotes the Bible 
about it, you know. Well, we’ll call it a flight of fancy. 
That poor, stupid Dutchman, who was seen around that 
day by several witnesses, had about as much to do with 
the murder as my dog Major had. How, that lane from 
Old Town Pond is a highway in everything but name. 
You all know as well as I do, people go across there 


282 


COUNSEL FOB THE PBOSECUTION. 


every day in the week without being bound to the 
Detmold farm-house ; I suppose we must call it the cot- 
tage now — quaint little cottage, and all that sort of thing. 
It’s a mighty damp, rickety, old farm-house, in point 
of fact, but since it’s been occupied by city people, it’s 
politer to say it is a cottage. The folks that have been 
in it this year must have got used to having foot pas- 
sengers going through the yard, night and day. The 
place was shut up so long, everybody got in the 
habit of going along that way from Wickapogue and 
thereabouts ; it cuts off half a mile or so. The tramp 
had as good a right as anybody to go through (that 
was no right at all, but he’d be as likely as any one to 
take it). He went through, most likely, when the fam- 
ily were in at tea, or maybe he struck off to the village 
through the fields before he got to the farm-yard. 
Again, the motive of the tramp was burglary, and no 
burglary has been committed; a footstool has been 
overturned and a couple of worthless articles are miss- 
ing. We won’t waste time over that. It speaks for 
itself. 

“ How, a little about that kitchen stair door. Matilda’s 
story was a plain, straightforward one, on the direct ex- 
amination. You don’t expect a poor Shinnecock half- 
breed to stand up against a city lawyer’s befogging 
questions. On the cross-examination she contradicted 
herself, as any one of her gauge of intellect would do. 
She shut that kitchen door and bolted it ; she would 
have done it by force of habit, if she had been fast 
asleep. Sophia trusted her, and that shows she’d never 
failed to shut it up before. The lower part of that 
house was shut off from communication with the upper, 
as fast as bars and bolts could make it. A noisy little 


COUNSEL FOR THE PROSECUTION. 


283 


poodle, who never let a stranger enter the gate without 
barking himself into fits, lay silent on the rug, and never 
lifted lip his voice. The rear was all secure ; the front 
was guarded by two wakeful women, in full possession 
of their faculties. Gentlemen of the jury, nobody got 
into that house from the rear that night ; you know it 
as well as I know it, notwithstanding this distinguished 
lawyer’s fiight of fancy. Who got in from the front, 
and how did he get in? You have heard the story so 
many times, it’s scarcely worth while to tell it all again. 
Bernard Macnally, or the man that’s passed among us 
by that name, was the last person to go into that room 
where the children lay. 'No other person could have 
got in, no other person did get in ; it wasn’t prejudging 
the murderer, when the work was seen, to say whose 
work it was. J^obody else had a chance to do the 
work ; no one else had a motive to do the work. 

“ The counsel for the defence has given us a good 
deal of talk about motive. He says the prisoner hadn’t 
any motive. Well, I say he had. Different men need 
different motives to push them on to doing things. This 
man is a cool hand. I think he may have been in so 
many tight places before, he has got pretty well used 
to tight places, and that sort of experience gives a man 
courage. He knew he could do it; he had done as 
risky things before. He is a man of force, there’s no 
denying that. He knew this widow loved him ; I 
don’t want to say anything against her, but she doesn’t 
come quite up to our notion of good conduct in this 
county, if she let him be hanging round her all sum- 
mer in the way she did, if she didn’t want to marry 
him, that’s all. But she did want to marry him. The 
only thing in the way was the children. She hadn’t 


284 


OOTINSEL FOE THE PEOSECUTION. 


money enongli to support this gay .young genthjman, 
and do justice to the children, too. IVe no doubt she 
got a little good advice from Sophia Atkinson. Well, 
she made up her mind at last she’d do her duty by the 
children, and she sent him off. 

“ You’re not to believe Sophia, because she listened. 
Pooh, whoo ! What woman can you believe, then ? 
I’m not sure but a man would have listened under the 
circumstances. 

“Now the rear of the house is all shut up, dark as 
a pocket, and as tight. The prisoner has said good-bye 
to his lady-love. I should have thought he would have 
been thinking about nothing but that. But he asks to 
go and see the children, too. He goes in, by the only 
entrance one could get in, to the nursery. When he 
comes out, Sophia sees him. He looks white and bad ; 
he walks past the mother of the children without a word ; 
he doesn’t offer to touch her hand. I shouldn’t think he 
would ! He goes away ; he knows he has time. • He 
trusts to luck ; he’s had pretty good luck so far in his ex- 
ploits, perhaps. He is a cool hand, remember. It needn’t 
surprise us that he shows no fright and nervousness till he 
is arrested. We may know all about that sort of thing if 
we will look over the police reports. I contend this man, 
of whom we know nothing, absolutely nothing, till ten 
months ago, is a member of what we call the criminal 
class. It isn’t a small class either, if we are to believe 
all the reports. We live in the country, and it is hard 
to believe in such depravity. I could cite you twenty 
cases that I have come across in my reading, that have 
in them a great deal that is parallel. He means to go 
to Europe, stay away awhile, and come back for the 
widow and lier nice snug fortune, when things shall be 


COUNSEL FOE THE PEOSECUTION. 


285 


smoothed out a little. I don’t saj this is a pleasant 
theory, but it is strictly in accordance with the facts. 

“ But, in many ways, this case has narrowed down to 
a contest between two witnesses. If you believe 
Sophia Atkinson, you believe there was no possibility 
for any one to enter the rear of the house. If you be- 
lieve her mistress, you are forced to admit there was. 
If you believe, again, this latter, you believe some one 
went out the gate, meaning to get away without at- 
tracting observation. If you believe Sophia, you be- 
lieve no one could have done it without her quick ears 
hearing them go out. The counsel for the defence 
says you mustn’t believe Sophia, because she listened, 
and because she kept that handkerchief with half the 
alphabet embroidered on it. Oh, yes ! and because she 
didn’t like the prisoner from the first, and thought him 
a bad lot. Well, do you know, it strikes me those are 
just three counts on which you ought to trust her. I 
don’t blame her for listening. Her mistress was 
young; she had been her nurse before she was her 
children’s nurse ; she saw she was being entrapped by 
a bad fellow ; she watched day and night to save her. 
The handkerchief (which, gentlemen, is one of a set 
found in the prisoner’s trunk) was something tangible 
to show he wasn’t Bernard Macnally, no matter if he 
was a perfect gentleman, and all that sort of thing. 
She kept it in a safe place, till she could use it to con- 
vince the younger woman of the mistake that she was 
making. And I don’t blame her very much for not 
liking him from the very first. I think it’s to the 
credit of her judgment that she didn’t. An intelligent 
American woman of her age, who has been trusted all 
her life by the family that she’s lived with, can’t be 


286 


COUNSEL FOE THE PEOSEOmON. 


pooh-poohed off the witness-stand by the flight of 
fancy of even a distinguished lawyer from the city. 
Sophia Atkinson is the sort of witness I like ; she’s the 
sort of woman I like ; I’d like her in my family. If 
she’s ever out of place, I hope she’ll remember my ad- 
dress. If I had a lot of young daughters, ready to be 
fallen in love with by adventurers from Ireland, I’d 
like to have her round. She’d suit me to a T. 

JNf ow, as to her mistress as a witness. Gentlemen, I 
don’t like to say anything that isn’t flattering about a lady. 
I am sorry for the sufferings she has undergone, as sorry 
as the counsel on the other side. Perhaps I’m not as 
easily overcome by personal attractions as he is ; we don’t 
think so much about things of that kind in the country, 
maybe, after vve marry and settle down. But I must 
say, there are things I don’t understand. That gate, for 
instance — wliy didn’t Sophia hear it? She was almost 
as near. It came in so pat, that gate. It was a god- 
send to the defence. I don’t know where the defence 
would have gone to have hunted up a theory but for 
the lifting of that gate-latch. Then that bolt on the 
door of the kitchen stairs. It’s remarkable the lady 
should have remembered it so long — just that little cir- 
cumstance. It wasn’t as if she was shutting up the 
house herself ; it wasn’t as if anybody had suggested, 
for days after the murder, that it was of the least im- 
portance in the case. Her remembering it so very 
clearly is a tiling that — well, that I can’t understand 
exactly. Only on one theory. How, don’t be shocked, 
gentlemen. I don’t want to be impolite. But I feel 
a sort of certainty of one thing. She didn’t remember it 
till she saw it was a necessary thing to be remembered. 
Don’t be shocked ; I can’t help it. It was a strong 


COUNSEL FOB THE PEOSECUTION. 


287 . 


temptation. You see, she wants to save him. She — 
well, she’s in love with him, gentlemen, and you know 
what that means. You know it means, with a woman, 
that she wouldn’t stop at anything. I’m sorry for her. 
It’s an awful thing all round. An infatuation of that 
sort will outlive everything. You know the law won’t 
receive a woman’s testimony for or against her husband. 
The law knows a woman can’t be trusted to tell the 
truth when it comes to hurting a hair of the man’s head 
that she loves. How, I don’t pretend to say this lady 
knows she has — well — misstated facts a little. I don’t 
say she would deliberately say what wasn’t strictly true. 
But she wants it to be true so dreadfully ; she thinks 
about it, and tliinks about it, and ends up in believing 
it herself. You can’t trust a woman in love ; there’s no 
way out of that. It introduces a nice moral question. 
It’s just the sort of thing my brother for the defence 
could spread out, till you didn’t know head from tail of 
it. It isn’t in my line, you see. I wish I could retain 
him to expound it to you. But as that’s impossible, we’ll 
have to let it drop. 

“ Gentlemen, let’s go back a minute to that parting 
between the prisoner and this lady. You’ve heard a 
great deal about it ; but I ask your patience while I re- 
peat to you the words which Sophia Atkinson testifies 
to having heard him say, and which her mistress doesn’t 
deny he said. They’re just these. I ask you to bear 
them in your mind. You remember he had asked her, 
desperately, at the last, why he must go away, and she liad 
told him, he must go. Then he said (please remember 
these words), ‘ It is your children stand between us, you 
cannot say it is not. You arenH willing to trust them 
to me, whatever you might he willing for yourself,^ 


288 


COUNSEL FOE THE PEOSECUTION. 


Whenever the defence talks to you about motive, just 
turn those words over in your mind, and see what you 
can make of them. I tell you what I make of ’em. 1 
make of ’em motive enough to hang him high as Hainan. 
That is all. I’m not going to talk to you any more 
about it. People on the east end of Long Island don’t 
have to be talked to all night to make ’em understand 
a thing. I suppose it comes of living so near the be- 
ginning of things ; they get an earlier start. 

“ How, gentlemen, I believe I have come to the last 
point I want to draw your attention to. In the judg- 
ment of the law, a man’s previous character goes for 
a great deal. Once establish that a man accused oi 
any crime has walked a steady, straight road in the 
sight of all men for a lifetime, and you’ve as good as 
cleared him. A man’s hfe, I say again, goes for a good 
deal, and it ought to go for a good deal. Men don’t 
break out all of a sudden into murderers and thieves. 
It doesn’t come upon ’em like the small-pox, unless 
they’ve had it in their system. How, gentlemen, let’s 
look at this man before us. Ten months ago, he rose 
out of the earth, or dropped down from the sky, into 
the Emlyn family. Colonel Emlyn, — now, I’ve a great 
respect for Colonel Emlyn, he’s a neighbor of mine, 
and we get along first-rate together — but I wouldn’t 
set him to take care of my family exactly. He adver- 
tises for a tutor, and along comes this one. He is a 
taking young fellow ; he talks the colonel into engaging 
him without a word of reference. He doesn’t know 
whether he dropped from the sky, as I say, or burrowed 
his way out from the ground. He doesn’t ask. He 
takes him. He brings him home, makes him one of 
the family. In fact, I don’t know but he makes him 


COUNSEL FOR THE PROSECUTION. 


289 


tlio most important member of bis family. . He lias tbe 
best of everything, he’s made a sort of pet of, he’s a 
privileged person, he’s introduced to the friends of 
the family. 

“Well, what does the young man do, in return for 
all this sort of kindness ? I’ll be bound the Emlyns 
don’t keep back anything from him — they’re not that 
sort of people. Things are talked of freely — their fam- 
ily connections, what they did last year and the year 
before, what they’re going to do next year. Does he 
return the compliment? Hot a bit of it. He talks 
enough. Heaven knows, but he’s exceedingly care- 
ful not to talk about himself. At the end of ten 
months, the people he’s been living with can’t tell 
you, though they rack their memory to do it, of a 
single word that he has dropped about his home, his 
people, his life before he came to them. They don’t 
know — anything about him. They’re ladies and gen- 
tlemen, and they don’t pry into what he doesn’t choose 
to tell them. The best they can say is that they found 
him reticent. Reticent ! Well, he’s the first Irishman 
I ever knew that was, even about his debts, and the bad 
whisky that he’d drunk, and the bad morals of his 
grandmother. Ho, gentlemen, he isn’t a common Irish- 
man, he’s an uncommon Irishman ; if he wasn’t, we’d 
have had an immigration law that would have kept him 
out a good many years ago. This man. Irishman as he 
was, knew how to hold his tongue. Here, at the foot of 
the gallows, he knows how to hold it still. These kind 
and hospitable people never got him to betray a word, 
in all the familiarity of every-day life. He could make 
jokes, and turn somersaults, and quote Greek and Latin, 
and slioot and fish, and play with the children, and 


290 


CX)UNBEL FOE THE PEOSECUTION. 


make love to tlie widow; but he couldn’t tell them 
‘iver a ward’ about himself. They tell you he was 
amiable. Of course. Why shouldn’t he be? Even 
Sophia tells you he didn’t bang the children about 
and complain of the biscuits when he came to tea. I 
shouldn’t have supposed he would. It wasn’t in his 
j)rogramme. He was trying to make people like him, 
and to get a footing. He succeeded pretty well. 
They were all infatuated with him. 

‘‘ The whole testimony for character that the defence 
can bring, extends back a distance of ten months. Ten 
months is a good while for some things, but for others, 
it’s rather a poor showing. If a man can’t behave him- 
self for ten months, it’s a pity. If he can’t let you look 
back into his life more’n ten months, it’s a J^ity, 
greater still. The counsel for the defence gives us dex- 
terously to understand, he is of a very fine family. 
Well, I’m sure I don’t say that he isn’t. I’m not much 
posted on the ways of fine families on the other side ; 
but all I can say is, if they’re all of ’em given to turn- 
ing somersaults, climbing poles, going about barelegged, 
driving through the streets with warming pans over 
their shoulders, I’m sure I’m glad they don’t emigrate 
to this country in any greater numbers. I’m just as 
well satisfied they should stay at home and look after 
their peat and potatoes. 

“ Ho, gentlemen. The counsel for the defence assures 
us that if the prisoner could be induced to roll up the 
curtain of his past life, we should see such a Phoenix 
that we’d all drop down on our knees and ask his par- 
don for having imagined it possible that he could do 
anything unhandsome. My impression is that if that 
curtain could be got to move, there’d be revealed to us 


COTHS'BEL FOR THE PROSECUTION. 


291 


such a jail-bird that every man of you’d be on his 
feet quicker’!! wink, and after him while there was 
breath enough to follow. 

“ Gentlemen of the jury, don’t let that jail-birc 
slip through your fingers ; don’t let his counsel have the 
laugh on you ; he knows as well as I do that fine words 
don’t butter any parsnips. W e’ ve had a century of peace 
in Sutphen County. If we want another, let’s make 
it understood it isn’t a healthy place for jail-birds and 
the like of them. Let’s show the world (for this is 
going to be a celebrated case,) let’s show the world we’re 
men enough to do our duty, and sharp enough to see 
it, if we do live on the far end of a sandy island, half 
way out to sea. Sutphen County wants no advice from 
city people. Sutphen County can manage her matters 
for herself. She knows the law, and she has the pluck 
to carry out its penalties when she sees it must be done. 
(Looking at his watch.) Bless my heart, I’ve talked just 
about twice as long as there was any need. I suppose 
I needn’t have opened my lips. I guess you’d made 
up your minds upon the matter long before I began to 
talk to you about it.” 

And he took his seat as if he were going to open 
the stove-door to put more wood in, or had sat down 
to consult his account-book about the winter wheat. 
He came in very fresh ; he hadn’t laid a hair in this 
sliarp pull against the city lawyer. All this told upon 
the audience. My heart died down within me. E 
couldn’t see the jurors’ faces. But I had seen a sort 
of smile pass sometimes over the faces of the three 
judges. I had detected hearty sympathy in the eyes 
of all the crowd. Sometimes I had looked with terror 
towards Mr. Hardinge, and had been reassuied. He 


292 


(DOTJNSEL FOB THE PROSECUTION. 


looked satisfied and undismayed. Occasionally he had 
glanced my way, as if to steady me. He dared not 
give me a look, but his eye, as it passed over mine, gave 
me a world of succor. 

It was late in the afternoon. The court had ad- 
journed ; the judge’s charge would be given in the 
morning — and then — and then — the verdict. The peo- 
ple were loath to disperse. They stood about in groups 
and talked with eager gesticulation. 1 could hear now 
and then a few words. They all went one way. But 
they were not the jury. But the jury was made up 
of such as they. 

How we all hved through that night I don’t at all 
know. Mrs. Emlyn was so restless that I knew she 
would be ill. The colonel looked like an old man. It 
was hard for people who had led such quiet and well- 
guarded lives. Even Sophia took to walking the floor, 
and could not lie down, or sleep, or eat. I believe I 
was the quietest of them all, and wrote the first letter 
of the day to poor Haomi, left behind in feverish 
anxiety at Happ 3 ’--go-lucky. Hobody had thought 
about her and Hed that day. In fact, there had been 
no time, and no one had had the resolution to do any- 
thing that required an effort of will or memory, or 
even of physical force. 


CHAPTEE XXIII. 


IN THE JUDGMENT OF TWELVE MEN. 

“ The days could somehow drag themselves 
Like wounded worms along : 

But I know not how we lived those nights, 
Save that God made us strong.” 


Faber. 



^HE next day opened raw and cliill. The rosiest 


J- girls in the court-room had blue lips and noses ; 
the men outside stamped their feet to keep warm ; the 
horrid fluted stove inside was beginning to give out hot 
air, a smell of heated iron, and an abundance of coal 
gas. The crowd was greater than ever, and more rest- 
less. Before the opening of the court there was a great 
deal of vehement talking, though low, but the volume 
of it together made a jarring, rough sound that tor- 
tured my ear. 

When the prisoner was brought in (we were seated 
first) he passed directly in front of us. lie even had 
to step over the bottom of my dress as it lay upon 
'he floor. But he did not lift his eyes, nor look at any 
^*f us. It seemed to me like some horrible spell of en- 
chantment ; we had been all these days within the same 
four walls, listening to the same words, thinking, of 
necessity, many of the same thoughts ; and not once 
had our eyes met, not once had I heard the sound of 
his voice ; the face and figure that met my eye were 


[ 293 ] 


294 m THE JUDGMENT OF TWELVE MEN. 

fitrangelj, awfully changed, and yet the same. It 
seemed to me such a combination of woe, and shame, 
and horror had never come into one lot before. It 
was like some horrible revel of the fancy more than 
like a fact ; he and I compelled to sit and listen, day 
after day, to the unveiling of our thoughts, to the tor- 
turing into diverse meanings the most sacredly secret 
words that we had ever uttered. In the gray dullness 
of this chill, real day, it all seemed more unreal and 
more hideous than ever. . . . The crier had droned 
out his formula, “ Hear ye, hear ye and in the pause 
that followed, 

Mr. Bell rose in his place, and said, May it please 
your Honor, since the adjournment of the court last 
night, a most important piece of evidence has come to 
my knowledge.- It was not through any neglect of 
those engaged in the prosecution, that it did not come 
to light before. It was, I am ashamed to say, due to the 
connivance of the officer who arrested the prisoner, 
that this important link in the chain of evidence was 
not supplied to us before. The officer is, as you remem- 
ber, an Irishman ; his sympathy for his countryman was 
greater than his sense of dut}’. As this miscarriage is 
due in no way to the prosecution, and that the ends of 
justice may not be defeated, I ask permission to offer 
this evidence now. I have the man’s affidavit, and the 
corroborating testimony ready. It will not detain you 
many minutes, and I ask permission to proceed. The 
importance of the testimony cannot be overstated.” 

Mr. Hardinge started to his feet. “ In all my legal 
experience, your Honor, I have never heard a parallel 
to this. It strikes me as an outrage that cannot be 
overstated. I protest against it, and deny that the 


IN THE JUDGMENT OF TWELVE MEN. 295 


prosecution have any more right to present a ]>iece of 
evidence after they have summed up their case, than 
they would have to present it six months hence at the 
next sitting of the court. My brother must have de- 
vised this way to make liis case immortal ; one will 
never know when it is ended. Your Honor, let U8 
hear no more of this, in the name of justice, and of 
law.” 

Mr. Bell blushed a deep blush of wrath, and made 
a testy answer. The judge, with deliberation, made a 
pause in the discussion, and ordered the jury to be taken 
out of court. They accordingly tiled out into the jury 
room, burning with curiosity, no doubt ; and in the 
silence which followed the closing of the door, Mr. 
Bell resumed his argument. I looked in vain for com- 
fort from my friend, the lawyer, now ; he forgot me, or 
had none to give. He was quite pale, and one could 
see all his senses were enlisted in the tight. You might 
have fired a cannon off beside him, and he would not 
have heard it while his opponent was speaking. I was 
so benumbed I could not follow them. I don’t know 
what was said on either side. I only know that after a 
great deal, the judge gave permission to the prosecution 
to read the affidavit of the officer, and amid a deep 
silence the following was read : 

I, Michael Denny, being duly sworn, depose that 
on the morning of the third of September I arrested 
the prisoner at the bar.” (Then followed the account 
of his arrest about two o’clock in the morning, at the 
depot, and the circumstances of his detention, etc., at 
the police headquarters till the departure of the next 
train for South Berwick.) “ It was my duty to examine 
him and to make an inventory of all the articles found 


296 IN THE JUDGMENT OF TWELVE MEN. 

upon his person. I had him in the waiting-room of 
the headquarters. There was nobody else in the room, 
only the officer stationed outside the door. I knew 
what the prisoner was accused of. I found in the inner 
pocket of his coat a child’s shoe. I didn’t believe he 
did the murder. I was sure of it. I knew, though, in a 
minute, it would look bad, his having the little shoe 
about him. He was standing by the window, I was 
away from it. I said to him, ‘ That won’t do you any 
good. Fitch it out of the window.’ He refused to do 
it. I made a move to do it myself. It was a high 
window overlooking the street. He put out his hand 
to stop me. Just that moment I heard a noise outside 
the door, and I drew back, and stooped down over the 
valise, where his dressing things and all were. I had 
already made the inventory of them, along with the 
other officer. It was he that was at the door and now 
came in, and another man with him. When I heard 
them come in, I pushed the little shoe down into a sort 
of pocket that there is inside the bag ; it was so little 
it didn’t seem to take up any room ; you couldn’t feel 
it if you passed your hand over it, not thinking. The 
other officers came up, and we finished the inventory of 
what he had on. Then they were detailed to take him 
up by the train. 1 never thought of the shoe again. I 
meant to have taken it out of the bag the next time the 
others went across the room, or anywhere. But it 
passed out of my mind. I have been very busy. I 
never thought of it again till I heard the counsel yester- 
day talk about it in his summing up. Then I was uneasy 
for fear somebody would find it. I made an effort to 
see the prisoner. Last night I got in for a minute, 
with an officer. He watched me all the time, I could 


IN THE JUDGMENT OF TWELVE ilEN. 


297 


Bee. I knew he distrusted me because I was an Irish* 
man,. 1 couldn’t get a chance at the bag, but I suppose 
he saw that was what I was at, and afterwards they 
Eearched it, and when they found this, and saw it wasn’t 
in the inventory that I had sworn to, they brought me 
up about it. That is all I have to say.” 

Your Honor,” said Mr. Bell, when he finished the 
reading of the affidavit (he spoke hurriedly and rather 
venomously, as if he feared not being allowed to get 
in all he wanted without being interrupted), ‘‘your 
Honor, I have here the shoe which the opposing coun- 
sel told us yesterday would identify the murderer. It 
was found as alleged in the affidavit, in the prisoner’s 
possession.” 

And he placed upon the table before him the 
Baby’s little shoe. I gave a faint cry at the sight ; I 
could not help it. The court-room was so still, it sound- 
ed from one end to the other, faint as it was. 

“ You don’t need other identification,” said the law- 
yer, “ the mother has told you, perhaps involuntarily. 
But to leave no doubt, I will show you its mate.” 

And he signed to Sophia, who came forward and 
put into his hand the shoe that, within a half-hour, she 
had taken from my trunk at the hotel. I had seen the 
deputy give her a note, and had seen her leave the 
.ourt-room, but had been too engrossed to wonder why 
^he went. 

“ I ask,” said the counsel, “ that these be put in evi- 
dence ; that the case be opened to admit testimony of 
\7hich we were defrauded by the dishonesty of the pris- 
oner’s countryman.” 

He laid the little shoes together on the table, then 
lifted them to bring them nearer to the judges’ range 


298 


IN THE JUDGMENT OF TWELVE MEN. 


of vision. He seemed to gloat over them. They were 
little slippers, made with a strap that buttoned round 
the ankle. They were worn and creased, and so very 
little. I put my hands up before my face. It killed 
me to look at them, and to see him touch them. 

“Your Honor,” said Mr. Hardinge, in a cold, hard 
voice. “ don’t let us ’degenerate into melodrama. We 
are in a court of law. I contend the absolute impossi- 
bility of admitting any evidence, no matter of what 
force or pertinence. I have already proved this to your 
Honor. I now ask you to throw out this testimony as 
utterly impertinent and worthless. If it had come in 
the regular course of the case, no one would have given 
it a second thought. It proves nothing. It fits in to 
nothing. When I said yesterday, that when those 
articles were found we should have found the murderer, 
I meant, and the counsel knows I meant, when we 
found them in the possession of a burglar. Your 
Honor, this man is not a burglar ; the prosecution 
doesn’t present him as a burglar. His having that 
shoe doesn’t prove anything but his affection for the 
little child that wore it. We know he had been in the 
room. We don’t gain anything by this proof that he 
had been there.” 

“We gain one thing,” said the senior counsel, ris- 
ing to his feet. “We take a nail out of that tramp’s 
coffin, and put it in the prisoner’s. If we could only 
set that foot-stool back in its place now, by Jiatural 
means, I think we could screw down the lid.” 

“Your Honor, this is no time for trifling; liumaii 
life is a thing too sacred. Don’t allow this to con- 
tinue.” 

“I only ask,” said the senior counsel, quite lm-^ 


IN THE JUDGMENT OF TWELVE MEN. 


299 


daunted, “ that my brother’s words have full force with 
you now. I only desire to recall to your mind, that 
we heard in court yesterday from him the unequivo- 
cal statement that when that toy and that shoe should 
be found, then and there the murderer would be found. 
If it was law yesterday, it must be law to-day. I can’t 
turn and twist about so quick as all that. I believed 
him yesterday. I keep on believing him. If it doesn’t 
prove anything new about the prisoner, it proves some- 
thing about that man of straw, the tramp. It proves, 
your Honor, that he didn’t exist, and that Bernard 
Macnally is the man we’re looking for, if anybody had 
any doubt before.” 

‘‘Your Honor,” cried Mr. Hardinge, “don’t let a 
man be hung for the zeal of a blundering officer, and 
for the chance word of his counsel ! I plead with you 
to sift these facts before they reach the jury ; to re- 
member the inflammable nature of human prejudice ; 
to think of the awful burden that would lie upon those 
who had departed from the rigid impartiality of the 
law, in such a critical moment as this. If, guilty, he 
should escape, the law, and not the administrators of it, 
would have to bear the blame. If, innocent, he should 
be saved, the law could alone be lauded. It has passed 
out of our hands; for or against, we have done our 
best; all human eflort is sealed now forever; if that 
testimony is admitted, the law is violated. A trust has 
been betrayed ; the divine character of justice has been 
sullied. We are but human; we can see but a little 
way. We must work within narrow rules, and then 
trust that they will develop the Divine Will and order. 
1 would never stand at the bar, to plead for or against 
a fellow-mortal’s life, if I did not believe in Divine 


300 


IN THE JUDGMENT OF TWELVE MEN. 


Justice working tkrougli human agency, humble and 
imperfect, but struggling on through generations of 
honest elfort, to break a channel for the truth. To me, 
the law is sacred ; break it lightly who dare ! I protest 
with all my soul against this wanton outrage of it.” 

And he sat down, almost as pale as the prisoner be- 
side him. My head swam. I could not follow tliem ; 
I did not know what they were talking about. I knew 
it was the crisis. Once or twice I saw the prisoner lift 
his head and look at the judges ; he did not seem more 
white and self-controlled than before, but I thought his 
eye shone with an intenser light. Even the children in 
the crowd loiew it was a crisis; there was a stillness 
that frightened me. It seemed endless — the fire of 
those opposing tongues, on which the crowd ‘hung 
breathless. I had lost the power to follow them ; they 
were in the region of the law, pure and simple, now, 
and the words were unfamiliar, and my brain had been 
on the strain too long. At last there was a pause ; the 
judge said something; there was a hush; then the 
deputy moved forward, and opened the door of tlie 
jury-room. The crowd, bewildered by the technicali- 
ties of the discussion, did not understand any more than 
I at first ; but, gradually, a low, angry murmur spread 
among them, as the jury filed back into their places. 

“What is it?” I said, catching Colonel Emlyn’s 
arm, who stood beside me. 

“ They don’t like it,” he said. 

“ Don’t like what ? I Cannot understand.” 

“ The judge has thrown out the evidence,” he an- 
swered. “ He has sent for the jury ; he is going to 
charge them now.” 

That gave me new life; but fears began again. 


IN THE JUDGMENT OF TWELVE MEN. 


301 


The judge had done his duty in the face of popular 
clamor. Would it be possible for him to keep on 
through all, with no concession to prejudice ? He had 
had the law to sustain him in throwing oat the testi- 
mony which, it was plain to see, was worth nothing, as 
evidence, but e’s^erytbing, in its influence on the jury. 
It was another question, whether he would dare to 
throw the weight of his influence for the prisoner, 
when it came to matters outside the stern walls of the 
law. 

He was a plain speaker ; his use of language was 
rather limited, but he had a sound legal mind, and a 
way of putting things that was impressive. If he had 
had more words, he might have got bewildered among 
them, for it was evident he was not a ready speaker. 
But his very poverty of language was forcible. His 
ideas stood out like Greek statues, undraped. His 
charge was throughout impressive ; intelligible to the 
meanest understanding, respectable to the highest. It 
was impartial, in a certain way : he reviewed the case 
critically; when he got through with that part, you 
would have been at a loss to say to which side he leaned. 
But the great strength of his speech was the injunction 
to them to beware of prejudice, to remember, the rend- 
ering of the verdict according to the law was all that 
they were answerable for. It was not whether they 
believed the prisoner guilty or not ; it was, whether the 
evidence that had been placed before them proved it. 
He warned them not to add one jot or tittle to it in their 
minds to fill up any space left vacant. Did that evi- 
dence show that Bernard Macnally had killed the chil- 
dren, or did it leave it an open question ? If it left it 
an open question there was but one thing for them to do. 


302 


IN THE JUDGMENT OF TWELVE MEN. 


His few words to tliem on the solemnity of their 
duty were almost startling ; the language was so simple, 
the truth so strong. He dismissed them to their delib- 
eration with a wish that they might, one and all, be 
guided by that Divine Wisdom which was given liberal- 
ly and without upbraiding to those that asked for it. 
The words sounded very real. 

Then began the time of waiting which I had so 
dreaded. An irresistible irritability took possession of 
me. I could not bear a word, a sound. I would not 
let them speak to me ; I would not go out into the ante 
room. In fact, I had such a dread of losing control of 
myself, that I feared any physical effort. The lawyers 
went out ; the prisoner went away with an officer and 
his counsel. The judges withdrew into another room. 
The people on the benches beyond us fell into chatter 
and restlessness, doors opened and shut. A young 
woman near me ate an apple ; the smell of it made me 
ill; the sound of her crunching teeth made me almost mad. 
She had cheeks as red as her apple. Two or three young 
men came and sat on the back of the bench before her. 
They talked and laughed, and alluded to the trial, and 
tilted themselves backward and forward, and she told 
them to “ Behave,” and to ‘‘ Stop their nawnsense.” 

The cold, raw wind blew in in gusts when the doors 
were opened. A tree close up by the window near us bent 
and tapped against the pane, and moaned and rustled, and 
tapped again. Two men leaned against the railing just 
behind Macnally’s empty chair. They looked at it, and 
seemed to hold it in abhorrence. They talked in low, 
angry tones ; they said something about lynch law, and 
the rights of communities to protect themselves. Then 
the stove. How shall 1 ever forget it, and its horrible 


IN THE JUDGMENT OF TWELVE MEN. 303 - 

heat and gas. Sophia went away, and came back with 
something mixed in a glass, and held it to my lips, and 
bade me drink it. I hated her and it, but I drank it. 
I suppose it was something soothing, for I felt better 
and quieter in a little while. 

I have no idea about the length of time. It may 
have been one hour, it may have been three, when there 
was a stir, a murmur, an excitement. People all came 
back t6 their places. The jury came back into their 
seats, the three judges resumed theirs. Amidst a pause, 
which seemed to me interminable, the foreman rose, 
and addressing the judge, said they had not agreed 
on one or two points, and had come back for further 
instructions. He indicated the evidence which they 
needed to hear again. The clerk was ordered to read 
what I had testified about the opening and shutting 
of the gate, about the shutting of the stair door by 
Sophia, and her exclamation of surprise that it was 
open. All of my testimony was read upon this subject. 
The clerk read it in a perfunctory way, in a loud voice, 
and with no expression. It might have been a bill of 
lading. It gave me such a strange sensation to hear my 
words hurtling about my ears in such a fashion. But 
as to strange sensations, one might think I had exhaust- 
ed them before this time. The jury expressed them- 
selves satisfied, and were conducted out again. The 
people all relaxed their rigidity of quiet, and began to 
move and talk a little. 

“ It all comes down to that,” said a man outside the 
railing near me. “ I knew it would. If they believe 
her testimony they’ll clear him. If they don’t, he’s 
bound to swing. There’s no getting out of that. 
They’ve got to convict him, it’s as clear as day.” 


304 ^ the judgment of twelve men., 

“Her testimony won’t go for that, with tlie 
jury,” said his companion, taking out his knife and 
pricking a sharp line along the bench before him. 
“ What’s-his-name showed all that up. You’ll see. He 
hasn’t got a chance.” 

‘‘ What did they come in, and have the testimony 
all read over to them, if they didn’t believe it ?” 

‘‘Oh, some dough-head couldn’t remember what 
she said, that’s all. Blamed if I remembered it myself, 
bearin’ such a lot of stuff.” 

Macnally and his counsel did not go away again, 
nor the judges. There was a general feeling that the 
decision would not be long deferred. Mr. Hardinge’s 
face was set and anxious. He did not attempt to look 
at or reassure me. The lawyers for the prosecution were 
whispering together in a confident manner. The judge 
looked stolid, his assistants solemn. Every time there 
was a sound in the -direction of the jury-room, the turn- 
ing of a door-knob, or the pushing back of a chair, there 
was a sensation in the crowd, and them a murmur of 
disappointment. Mrs. Emlyn had gone out ] ong before, 
utterly unable to bear it. The colonel sat faithfully 
beside me. Sophia, whose face I never looked at now, 
sat on the other side, rigidly still. I had just one feel- 
ing ; good or bad, I wished they would give their ver- 
dict now. I could not bear the strain another minute. 
It seemed to me the difference between life and death 
had dwindled into something that you couldn’t see. 1 
didn’t care. I only asked a certainty. 

It was not long — I don’t believe more than lialf an 
hour, when a stir from the direction of the jury-room 
showed that the moment had come. The alert deputy 
was seen opening the door, and putting back chairs and 


IN THE JUDGMENT OF TWELVE MEN. 305 

benches before the coming of the dealers-out of life or 
death. I don’t suppose there was a pulse in all that 
densely-packed assembly that didn’t throb quicker at 
the thought of what we had arrived at ; slow and old, 
quick and young — each one was stirred on beyond its 
usual beat by the awful possibilities to which we had 
come up. 

The jury came in, with stumbling, heavy boots on 
the bare floor. When they had taken their places, the 
clerk stood up, and, in his loud, unmeaning voice, 
called out their names, to which, in various tones, 
they answered. Then, in the same mechanical voice, . 
he asked if they had agreed upon their verdict. The 
foreman said : 

“We have.” 

A dark shadow fell upon the face of Hardinge. I 
suppose his best hope had been a disagreement. The 
prisoner was ordered to stand up. He stood up. Arm 
and straight, and lifted a steady glance to the face of 
the man whose next breath would slay or save him. 
Merciful Heavens ! how do people live through mo- 
ments such as these ? 

The clerk said, as if he were reading ofl a chattel 
mortgage : 

“ Do you And the prisoner at the bar guilty or not 
guilty of the crime for which he is arraigned ?” 

“ Hot guilty !” said the foreman, standing up. 

An inky black tide seemed swirling over me. I 
p7it out my hand to save myself from some unknown 
horror, and sank senseless to the floor. 

When 1 next became conscious, I was lying on the 
bed in the room we had occupied at the hotel. The 


306 


m THE JUDGMENT OF TWELVE MEN. 


first few moments were very confused and painful, but 
I gradually recalled what had passed, and gathered my 
wits together. I felt smothered and hot; the room 
was dark — it was night ; there was only a faint light 
burning by my bed. The smell of kerosene irritated 
me; the weight of the blankets oppressed me. I 
pushed them back. Sophia, who was sitting some- 
where in the shadow, watching me, came forward. 1 
told her I wanted some water, and she gave it to me. 
Then I said : 

“Where is Colonel Emlyn? Ask him to come 
here.’’ 

“It is late,” she said, evasively. “Wait till morn- 
ing.” 

I had heard steps in the next room. I knew that 
he was there. 

“ I want him now,” I said. 

She went to the door and spoke, and he came in, 
looking anxiously at me. 

“ You may go away,” I said to Sophia. “I want 
to speak to him alone.” 

She exchanged a look with him, and went away 
into the next room, not shutting the door. I motioned 
him to shut it, which he did, and then came back and 
stood beside the bed, looking down on me with solici- 
tude and pity on his worn face. 

“ I don’t remember everything,” I said, pushing my 
hand behind the pillow, and trying to raise my head. 
“ Js he cleared ?” ' 

He nodded. “ Yes, he’s safe.” 

There was a moment’s pause. “ Where is he now ?” 

“ He went right away with Hardinge.” 

“ Did you speak to him ?” 


IN THE JUDGMENT OF TWELVE MEN. 


307 


I hadn’t a chance ; I was taking care of you. 
You — were ill, you know.” 

Did Mrs. Em^yn P 

“No, slie had gone out of the court-room. She was 
here at the hotel.” 

“ Did anybody speak to him ?” 

“Not that I remember. There wasn’t any time, you 
see, Hardinge hurried him off. He didn’t think that 
it would be wise to run the risk of any trouble. There 
was a good deal of feeling about the verdict.” 

“He will be going away — to Europe. I must see 
him. Colonel Emlyn, you will have to send for him.” 

He gave me a look of pity. “ Don’t bother about 
anything now,” he said. “ Y ou are too ill.” 

“ I am not too ill. I must see him before he sails. 
You must go and send a telegram at once.” 

“ It is too late,” he said, uncomfortably. 

“ How do you mean, too late ? Isn’t the office open ? 
Take it to them, then, and make them promise to send 
it the first thing in the morning.” 

“ It’s too late, my poor child. He’s — he’s gone, you 
know.” 

“Gone? Yes, I know, from here — he went this 
afternoon after the verdict ; but you can catch him ; 
telegraph Hardinge — everybody — don’t lose a minute 
— tell him Ywant him — he must come — ” 

“ My child, that was two days ago ; he sailed yester- 
day morning — I had a line from Hardinge — ” 

That black tide was crawling over me again. I put 
out my hands to save myself from the dark unutterable 
suffocation, and was swallowed up in merciful oblivion. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


THE TINKLE OF A TINY BELL. 

** Left more desolate, more dreary cold 

Than a forsaken bird’s nest, filled with snow.” 

Wordsworth. 

“Once the hungry Hours were hounds. 

Which chased the day like a bleeding deer, 

And it limped and stumbled with many wounds, 

Through the nightly dells of the desert year.” 

Shelley. 

I T was two years later. Sophia and I were on a rail- 
way train, drawing near, for the first time since those 
sad days, to the great city which had been our home 
before we went to spend that summer at South Berwick. 
The two years had been passed in a little Canadian vil- 
lage, where Sophia had relations. When I began to 
recover from the fever which succeeded the days 
of the trial, it was necessary to take me somewhere, 
the farther away the better, the doctors said ; the greater 
change the better. The Emlyns would gladly have 
kept me with them ; their kindness was unbounded. 
But I felt too stricken to bear the touch of even such 
tender hands as theirs. I was out of place where there 
was life and youth and hope. I knew it was not right 
to darken any household with my sorrow ; my good 
friends had already borne too much of it. When Sophia, 
one day, spoke of this far-away little village, where her 
[ 308 ] 


THE TINKLE OF A TINY BELL. 


309 


relations lived, I grasped at it. It seemed to me more 
like the rest of the grave than anything that I could get 
this side of it. 

‘‘ Let us go there,” I said. • 

The quiet, the utter seclusion, the unfamiliarity of 
everything, the keen, bracing cold of the climate, all 
combined to heal me of my wounds. At the end of 
two years I was alive, I was sane, I was well. Sophia 
had grown restless under the long quiet. I did not 
want to be selfish. I told her we would come back. 

During the two years, the Emlyns had gone abroad. 
At first I got frequent letters from them, but latterly 
they had written very little. Colonel Emlyn’s health had 
been a cause of great anxiety to his wife. The excite- 
ment of the events of that last month at South Berwick 
had been very severe upon him at his age. He had never 
been willing to return to Happy-go-lucky ; the place was 
shut up and offered for sale. He was restless, and suffered 
from' loss of memory, and from sleeplessness ; I could 
see Mrs. Emlyn felt a sword was hanging over her. I 
did not write often to them, for two causes ; first, that it 
was acute pain to me to write a letter, and secondly, 
that I thought it really kinder to let all that was con- 
nected with that dreadful time die out, and not to bring 
myself up at all to him in his present state. 

And about Macnally. Colonel Emlyn had been 
very kind in trying to satisfy my desire of getting a let- 
ter to him. But after many weeks, my poor letter had 
come back to me. N o trace of him could be found. In the 
hurried parting between him and Hardinge, only some 
vague promise had been made of writing ; he had given 
no address. It was not to be expected that he should 
write to the Emlyns. Colonel Emlyn, with all his do- 


310 


THE TINXLE OF A TINT BELL. 


sire to save him, had had but one conviction from the 
first ; and he was too honest a man to be able to hide 
it. That he had not given him his hand when the ver- 
dict was pronounced ; that he had not in the time that 
intervened between that and his sailing, made some ex- 
pression of friendship or congratulation, was enough to 
account for his silence towards them. IS'o doubt he 
was convinced that there was no dissenting voice; that 
no one believed in his innocence of all who had been 
his friends that summer. But that he had no word for his 
counsel, who, humanly speaking, had saved his life, was 
less accountable. The expenses of his trial had all been 
met by the salary which he had not touched during his 
ten months at Colonel Emlyn’s, and by remittances, 
which, no doubt, he had received in the last letters which 
had come, and of which he had spoken to me. There 
was no obligation upon him to write, but the sense of 
gratitude to one who had spent so much effort in his 
service. V 

“ I own,” wrote Mr. Hardinge, in answer to Colonel 
Emlyn’s inquiries, “ I did look for a line of acknowl- 
edgment from him when he should have reached 
home, but none has ever come. In fact, my dear sir, I 
don’t, at this moment, know whom I defended, any more 
than if I had done it in a dream. But for the strong 
impression that the man made on me, I should begin 
to feel some doubt of him.” 

For me, there was but one conviction — that he was 
no longer living. 

It was a cloudy day in late October ; the very last 
day of the month. Our long journey was drawing 
near its end ; an hour more, and we should be in the 
city. Sophia was in the seat beside me. I was next 


THE TINKLE OF A TINY BELL. 


311 


tlie window, looking out over the broad river, now 
gray with the approach of evening. The jar and noise 
of the cars was considerable, but not enough to make it 
difficult to talk with the person sitting next you. I had 
something to say to Sophia. 1 had been thinking of it 
for a great many days, and had chosen this moment 
for the saying of it. It was easier to say what I wanted 
to in this place, than in a qniet room. For one thing, 
we need not look at each other as we talked, and tliere 
was no possibility of showing agitation on either side. 
(It is necessary to explain that Sophia and I never al- 
luded, in any manner, to the cause of the desolation of 
our lives. After the children’s clothes were packed 
away, and their books and toys put out of sight, there 
was never a word uttered between us that would have 
indicated to any stranger the fact that they ever had 
existed. Her wound was only less grievous than mine. 
It was an instinct of seK-preservation that kept us 
silent. If we were to live, that was the only way to do 
it. We must make a new routine for ourselves, and 
keep to it. It was the only chance of keeping from 
despair.) So it was with great effort that I spoke, 
looking out of the window as I did it. 

“You will be very busy to-morrow, I suppose, set- 
thng the rooms, and all that. I never was much use 
in doing that. I’m going to take the chance, and go 
away for a day and night.” 

She gave a start, and said : 

“ Go away ?” 

I scarcely had been out of her sight an hour since 1 
Lid been all she had to care for. Ho wonder that she 
started. 

“ Yes,” I said, as firmly as I could, “ I want to go 


312 


THE TINKLE OF A TESTY BELL. 


to South Berwick. It has been in mj mind a great 
while. This is the best time.” 

“ You’d better wait till you’re rested from this jour- 
ney,” she said, hoarsely, “ before you take another.” 

I am well enough for it. I will go in the 
morning. There is a train at eight o’clock. I looked 
it out in the paper yesterday.” 

There was not another word said. We sat in utter 
silence, side by side, as the cars rushed on into the twi- 
light. The plan, which I had told her so quietly, had 
been maturing in my mind for weeks ; it scarcely ever 
left my thoughts. The desire to see the children’s 
graves before another snow fell on them, had grown so 
strong, that I felt as if she must have known it, in our 
daily life together. She had expressed no emotion; 
but her face, when we came out into the light of the 
depot, after leaving the cars, showed the traces of 
strong agitation. Sophia’s face had grown older in 
these two years. It had come to go well with hei 
prematurely-whitened hair. She looked a woman of 
fifty, who had seen trouble, and whose heart had known 
how to ache. She was more silent now, and her silence 
gave a deep look to her eyes. Those still vehement 
feelings of hers left a mark upon her face — the more 
that they found no vent from her lips. 

She prepared everything for my journey, and was 
up in the gray dawn to get my breakfast for me and to 
see me go, but no further word was spoken between us 
of the object ol my going. 

The day was raw and cheerless. A bleak wind was 
blowing and the clouds were racing over the sky, sky 
and clouds all gray and leaden. All around the horizon 
there was a streak of light as if a great chalice of gloom 


THE TINKLE OF A TINT BELL. 


313 


were being let down slowly over the earth and the light 
being gradually shut out. The men in the cars but- 
toned up their coats, and huddled round the stove and 
pointed out, and said, that looked like snow, and ‘‘Win- 
ter had set in smart and early. A snow-stoian on the 
first day of November was a thing that didn’t often 
happen.” I thought of the little graves, with the grass 
and weeds of two years on them, hidden from my sight 
by the falling snow. Ah ! The dreariness of that long^ 
cold ride ! The dreariness of the landscape, the dreari- 
ness of the sky ! 

When I got out of the cars at South Berwick a 
keen and cruel wind was blowing. I could hardly 
stand up against it. The snow, which had begun to fall, 
struck my face with shai-p points. I could not walk to 
where I wanted to go in this state of weather. There 
was a man there with a wretched, covered vehicle, 
which I hired, and told him where to drive me. It 
seemed to me so hard and cruel that I could not go 
alone ; that this lean, curious man should have to go with 
me, and see for what I went. There are some disappoint- 
ments that have peculiarly sharp stings, and I have 
always noticed that such as these are the hardest to 
bear patiently. I had borne greater things without 
murmuring ; to-day, the cruel weather, the hard grind- 
ing necessity that some one should witness my first visit 
to the graves of my children, the total difierence be- 
tween what the visit was now and what I had so long 
dreamed it would be, gave me a stronger sense of rebel- 
lion than perhaps I liad ever felt before. . . 

The man behaved better than 1 thought he would ; 
lie drove his rough-coated, big horse up and down the 
road a little distance off, and did not seem to look at 


314 


THE riHKLE OF A TINY BELL. 


me, but beat bis long arms across bis breast and engaged 
bimself in keeping warm. 

When I got in tbe wagon again be drove me towards 
tbe village. I asked bim wbetber any one lived in tbe 
Detmold farm-bouse. !No one, be said. It lias never 
been rented since — since tbe folks that bad all that 
trouble moved out of it two years ago last September. 
I tbink it began to dawn on bim wbo I was. I told 
bim if be knew wbo bad tbe key to drive to tbe place 
and get it, I wanted to go in tbe bouse. lie knew ; and 
we drove to tbe bouse and I beld tbe reins over tbe 
back of tbe heavy winter-coated borse, while be went in 
and got tbe key. 

While tbe wind and the sharp bail and snow were 
beating in my face, we drew up to tbe door of my 
])oor, desolate little borne. I stood by the gate, 
benumbed with the cold, blinded by tbe sleet ; I could 
scarcely see where I went. I remembered that J didn’t 
want tbe man to stay ; I took out my purse to pay bim. 
With a strange rush of anguish there came over me tbe 
recollection of that bright May noontide when we firet 
drove up to our new home, and when I bad eagerly gone 
in, with tbe children at my side, forgetting to pay the 
man for bringing us, till recalled by Sophia. I counted 
out tbe change. Tbe man put it in bis pocket, and, re- 
mounting tbe old carriage, trundled away in it. 

Tbe gate latcli was so rusty, I could scarcely move it ; 
tbe path so overgrown, 1 stumbled through it. The 
balcony steps were unsteady ; one or two shingles were 
loosened from tbe front of tbe bouse. Tbe vines bad 
trailed over tbe floor of tbe balcony, and a heap of dead 
leaves were blown up into a corner where tbe trumpet 
creeper made a shelter for them. On tbe railing of tbe 


THE TIHKLE OF A TINY BELL. 


315 


balcony in front, there hung a little board, on which a bill, 

“ For sale,” or perhaps ‘‘ To let,” had been nailed. What- 
ever it was, many storms and winds had defaced it, and no 
one could read now what it announced. When I bent 
down to try to fit the key to the lock, my hands shook so 
from cold and agitation that I could scarcely do it. The 
snow, which was coming in gusts, sometimes ceasing alto- 
gether, sometimes driving through the air in thick drifts, 
stopped a moment now, and I could see, and opened 
the door and entered. If there had been a coldness 
that drove the blood to my heart, outside, there was a 
chill that seemed to congeal it there, inside. Why had 
I come ? I asked myself. The shut-up rooms felt like 
vaults ; dust and desolation was spread over all the 
familiar place. It all seemed a mockery, so real and so 
unreal, so changed and yet so grossly the same. 

Why had I come ?” I said, again, turning my eyes 
away from a branch covered with long, gray moss, still 
hanging over the mantelpiece, where cobwebs and dust 
were thick. The ashes were all taken away from the 
cheery little Franklin ; the andirons turned and stand- 
ing parallel, the fender put up in a corner. The table 
was shoved up against the wall ; the chairs stood 
blankly around ; a dim, ghastly light came in through 
the warped and yawning shutters. 

I had promised myself that I would not go into the 
nursery. The dark middle chamber was darker than 
ever; it smelt of mildew and dust, and the uneven 
floor creaked as I trod on it. The wind howled through 
the many cracks about the boards, and a little heap of 
Biiow had already sifted in through the chinks of the lit- 
tle, dim and dirty window. I pushed open the door of 


316 


THE TDJKLE OF A TINY BELL. 


my own room. The bedstead was piled with pillows and 
bolsters ; the dressing-table was bare ; the chairs turned 
up, one upon the other. The poor little curtains were 
still hanging, limn and draggled, at the window, beside 
which stood the big three-cornered chair, in which I 
used to sit, with Maidy mounted on the stool, looking 
out at the bird’s nest in the old cedar tree. I wondered 
whether the old cedar was still standing, whether the 
birds had built in it again. I pushed open the shutters 
and then put down the sash, and sat down in the old 
chair, and leaned my face on my hands upon the 
window-sill, and looked out. 

Yes, there stood the cedar, rough and gnarled and 
bent, and in it — my heart gave a sickening throb — was 
the ‘ bird’s nest as of old. ‘‘ A forsaken bird’s nest 
filled with snow.” The tree rocked with the pressure 
of the wind ; the dead leaves of the vine about it, fell 
with every gust ; but the nest clung there, empty, use- 
less, undesired. The young and living brood that once 
had filled it — where were they ? The animate gone, 
the inanimate left. My desolation pressed down heavier 
upon me, as I gazed at these familiar, unmoved things 
of nature ; the old boxwood below the window, where 
the children played ; the cedar where we watched the 
bird’s nest ; the grape-vine where Naomi swung them. 
I felt as if they should have perished ; as if it were a 
cruelty that they should stand while the years passed 
over them, and all that dear and precious flesh was 
hidden under darkness and decay. 

As I sat gazing out, there came upon me a vivid 
recollection of that morning after Baby’s illness, when 
I was sitting there with Maidy, looking at the birds, 
and Macnally had come by, with his fishing-rod upon 


THE TINKLE OF A TINY BELL. 


317 


his shoulder. I recalled Maidj’s eager pleasure at the 
sight of him ; I could see his lithe and graceful figure 
as he swung himself up into the branch and held out 
the shells to her one by one. Every word that we had 
said came back to me. I recalled suddenly that while 
he was giving her the last shell, we became aware of 
a tumult in the tree above his head. Sharp cries from 
the parent birds filled the air ; first one, and then the 
other, flew at him, grazing his head in their flight, 
pecking at him, and obliging him to defend himself 
with both hands. 

' “ The little vixens,” he cried. “ What are they 

about ?” 

“ The nest, the nest !” screamed Maidy, her smiles 
extinguished. 

“ There’s a nest with two young birds just above 
your head,” I explained. 

“ I’m trespassing, am I,” he said, letting himself 
down to the ground lightly, and looking up. “ I’m 
afraid they’re the ghosts of the plovers’ eggs. Mafo% 
but that smallest one has got a temper ! I think her 
first name must begin with S,” he exclaimed, dodg- 
ing another attack. 

“ Why must her name begin with S ?” demanded 
Maidy, open-eyed. 

‘‘ Because she’s savage,” he returned. 

It was really a curious sight, the wrath and 
courage of those two tiny creatures defending their 
^ ^oung. Mr. Macnally drew back a little from the tree, 
and gathered up his rod and creel. At this moment 
Ann Day came out from the rear door of the kitchen, 
with a basket of clothes to hang out. One end of the 
rope was fastened to a branch of this same tree. As 
she approached g^uite near us, I said, 


318 


THE TINKLE OF A TINY BELL. 


“ Take care, Ann ; don’t shake the tree ; there is a 
nest of young birds in it, and the mother bird is afraid 
that somebody is going to hurt her young ones. She 
is flying about in such distress; listen to her; poor 
thing, it makes my heart ache for her.” 

The woman was a low, thick-set Irishwoman ; her 
featm’es were coarse, but her expression kindly. She 
had light-blue eyes, which w^ere restless, but not ex- 
pressive, ordinarily. She looked up when I began to 
speak, with her usual uninterested manner, but when 
she saw the nest, and the birds circling above it, and 
heard my explanation, a deep flush came over her face, 
and an angry light was emitted from her eyes. She 
stooped over her basket of clothes, muttering to herself. 
Her hands shook ; I almost thought I heard a curse, 
and drew Maidy back from the window. She pulled 
out some article from the basket, and attempted to hang 
it up upon the line, but, not succeeding, tore it down 
and threw it upon the ground, scattering the box of 
clothes-pins at her feet, and with a lowering look to- 
wards the birds, went muttering away. 

“ Have I «done anything to oflend her said Mac- 
nally, with a gesture of despair. 

“ Oh, no,” I said smiling, looking after her, as she 
disappeared from sight behind the barn. 

“ Who has done anything, and what, may I ask, 
does it mean ?” 

“ Poor Ann !” I said, with a sigh. “ She has had a 
sad history, as far as I can gather it. She has told me a 
little, and the Indian and Sophia have got more from 
her. She went to the West Indies when she was a 
young woman, to wait upon an officer’s wife, and natu- 
*ally, after a year or two, married a soldier.” 


THE TINKLE OF A TINY BELL. 


319 


“ And quite as naturally, after a year or two, lie de- 
serted lier, I suppose.” 

“ Exactly ; leaving her with one child. I don’t know 
how she happened to come to the United States ; but 
for some reason she did. The child was a great burden 
to her, though I am sure she loved it very much. I 
fancy her great desire was to earn money to go back 
to Ireland, and the child was in the way of her going 
out to work by the day, and if she took a place at sei’- 
vice, she couldn’t get wages enough to do more than 
support it at board. Then somebody suggested to her 
to put it in an institution of charity. I can’t get out of 
her what the name of it was ; I don’t believe she really 
knows herself. At any rate, she put it there, wher- 
ever it was, and took a place at service, and earned good 
wages for a year or two, and put the money into a 
savings-bank. Poor soul ; she has the bank-book now, 
and showed it to me. She won’t use it, for she thinks 
it is blood-money.” 

What does blood-money mean, mamma ?” said 
Maidy, pressing eagerly against me. 

“ I had forgotten you, Maidy. Well, it meant this 
time, that it was the price she paid for her little girl’s 
life.” 

“ Did she sell her ?” said Maidy, in awestruck tones. 

“ Not exactly, but she feels as if she had. For, one 
day, when she got liberty to go and see the child, she 
found it had been dead for several weeks, and was 
buried in the pauper burying-ground.” 

“ Poor soul,” said Macnally, with a sigh. 

“ They hadn’t taken the trouble to warn her of its 
illness, though they had her name and address. And 
some underling told her it had been ill-treated and neg- 


320 


THE TINKLE OF A TINY BELL. 


lected. wliicli may have been true, or may not. All 
that was left to her was the little bundle of clothes 
which the child had worn when she took it there. This 
they gave her back, pinned up, and marked systemati- 
cally with her name. She brought it over one day 
and opened it and showed me the clothes. There was 
a little faded pink calico frock ; she stroked it with her 
hands, and said, ‘me foine ghirl ! me foine ghirl !’ She 
never went back to her place, but wandered about the 
streets for days, carrying the little bundle ; her intellect 
quite shattered. I suppose she must have been taken 
up by the police and committed to some asylum. After 
that she doesn’t seem to be able to give any account 
of herself that is at all coherent. She is quite reason- 
able on every other subject, and is an excellent worker. 
I suppose they found she was fit to set at large, and so 
dismissed her from the asylum.” 

“ How did she wander up here ?” 

“I can’t imagine. I have often wondered. But it 
was the very place for her ; the quiet and the total ab- 
sence of all associations. The neighbors are kind to 
her, and she gets a good deal of work. Her tumble- 
down little house, though, is in an awfully lonely situa- 
tion. I’ve feared sometimes some tramp would mur- 
der her for her little hoardings. Ann loves to hoard, 
poor soul ; her calamity didn’t cure her of it.” 

“ Is she capable of doing a servant’s work ? Can she 
understand orders given her, and all that ?” 

“ Oh, yes, as well as any one ; except when something 
upsets her — seeing children, or something like that, she 
is quite the best servant that I’ve had in a long time.” 

“ What has set her off to-day ?” 

“ Well, I have an idea that yesterday she was stirred 


THE TINKLE OF A TINY BELL. 321' 

up by hearing Sopbia talk of Baby’s illness, and seeing 
my agitation ; and just now, it was the sight of the 
mother bird’s distress about her young ones. I saw the 
blood rush into her face the moment I called her atten- 
tion to it, and her poor dull eyes grew so troubled, and 
then so fierce. I’m sorry I spoke to her about it. I 
ought to have known better.” 

“ I don’t see how you possibly could have known bet- 
ter, or, indeed, could have guessed what troubled her 
at all.” 

“ You would see, if — if you were a mother,” and I 
stroked Maidy’s head as she leaned out of the win- 
dow. 

“ The maternal instinct, I confess, baffles me in 
some of its developments — that, for instance,” he added, 
as one of the birds swooped above his head again. 
“ What have I done to call for that ?” 

“ Leaned against the trunk of the tree, I am afraid.” 

“Ah! Well, I don’t seem to be popular here. I 
think I’d better be taking myself off.” 

And shouldering his rod, and kissing his hand to 
Maidy, he went away through the garden, leaping the 
fence, and striking ofi across the fields. 

That afternoon, late, Sophia came into the nursery, 
where I was sitting with the children ; she held out 
two dead birds, with necks wrung, heads dangling. 
“See what I found under the nest,’’ she said, with a 
tone of triumph. Maidy gave a cry, and bursting into 
tears, hid her face in my dress. “ Sophia 1 ” I cried, 
reproachfully, “ how can you torture the child so ? ” 

“ Oh,” she exclaimed, tossing her head, “ I didn’t 
kill the birds : you needn’t reproach me. Go to them 
that did.” 


322 THE TIXKLB OF A TUfT BELL. 

‘‘ 1 should, with pleasure, if I knew whom to go to. 
It was a cruel thing. The poor mother bird, how she 
must be grieving now 1 ” 

“ Well, you won’t have far to go.” 

I knew, by a certain inflection of her voice, that 
always made itself apparent when she spoke of Mac 
nally, that she meant him. I could almost have laughed 
at her pcirsistent malice. I soothed Maidy, and insisted 
on Sophia’s taking the birds out of sight at once. I did 
not feel that I ever wanted to look out of my window 
again, at the old cedar tree. A little thought had 
made me sure to whom the poor birds owed their 
death. 

And now I saw again in memory Ann Day come out 
with her basket of clothes; I saw the dark flush pass 
over her face, as she watched the distracted parent bird ; 
I heard her muttered curse, and saw her go angrily 
away. Since it occurred, I had never remembered 
before the incident of two strangled birds found below 
the nest that afternoon. A great pressure of great 
events had pushed it out of my mind. Now it came 
back to me with a keen clearness. I remembered that 
at the time, I had felt sure that Ann had killed the 
birds. I had been able to account for it by the in- 
sane impulse to level all maternal happiness to her 
own dreary desolation. It had affected me, at the 
time, but I had forgotten it. 

A sudden illumination tilled and stunned me. It was 
Ann Day’s maniac hand that had robbed my nest of 
its brood. It was that poor crazed brain that had risen 
v*p at the sight of my too-full arms, and had dragged 
their treasure out. Every circumstance that I could 
recall confirmed it. I heard, as if just spoken, Sophia’s 


THE TINKLE OF A TINY BELL. 


323 


words as she came into the parlor wliere I sat in the 
darkness, brooding over Macnally’s going : 

“ Ann Day went away without her money to-night.” 

The unexplained fact that Hex had not bai ked ; the 
lack of evidence that any burglary had been ati^empted ; 
her familiarity with the house ; her accustomed noise- 
lessness — all these things flashed before my mind in a 
moment. I got up from my seat, a sort of Are running 
through my veins. If she should be dead ; if it should 
be impossible to prove it ; if this injustice must go on 
forever ! I knew now why I had come. But my word 
and my conviction would do little if I could not get 
some proof. 

I hurried out into the snow, now driving in thick 
sheets past the house. The road to Ann’s cottage was 
a lonely one. I shortened it by crossing some fields and 
going along a lane. It was a desperate battle with the 
wind and snow. When I came in sight of it, I was so 
nearly exhausted I had to stop and rest. I was prepar- 
ing myself to find it vacant, to hear, when I should go 
back to the village, that she had gone away, and that 
all trace of her was lost. When I got within a few rods 
of the house, I saw a thin curl of smoke rising from the 
broken chimney. Then, whoever might be there, it was 
not empty. 

It was a wi’etched hovel, patched up in every way 
to keep out the cold sea winds. There were some kettles 
and a tub beside the door ; a dingy rag or two fluttered 
from a bush at the end of the house. I stood on the stone 
before the door, and knocked. An almost inaudible 
voice within answered. I entered. The room was so 
low and so dark I could scarcely distinguish anything 
for a nvx«u?ut. Something moved on a low bed beside 


324 


THE TINKLE OF A TINY BELL. 


tlie stove. I picked mj way across the room, and stood 
at the foot of the bed. It was a scene of indescribable 
squalor. The figure on the bed was covered with all 
imaginable rags, crowned with an old piece of carpet ; 
the window above it was stuffed up with a sheaf of 
straw ; the smell from the stove was very coarse and 
disgusting. 

“ Is it Ann I said. “ I have come to see Ann 
Day. It’s so dark I can’t tell.” 

A head was turned over a little towards the faint 
light of the opposite window. 

‘‘Yes, it’s Ann Day. What are ye wantin’ wi’ me?” 

I now recognized her face. She did not look much 
changed, except thinner, and she had an' expression of 
physical suffering — suffering which quite engrossed her 
thoughts. She moved herself up a little in the bed and 
looked at me. I came around to the side of the bed 
and stood very near to her. She recognized me, but it 
didn’t seem to affect her much ; she was much more 
interested in a pain which had resulted from her turn- 
ing over. 

She talked a little, answered all my questions quite 
intelligently. She had been ill, she said, off and on all 
the fall. She had been very bad since the day before 
yesterday. She wouldn’t let folks know, because they 
would make her go to the county house. They had 
been trjdng to get her there all the winter before. She 
wasn’t going for ’em. She’d stay where she was, if she 
died for it. I saw from her gasping way of speaking 
that she had some sharp trouble about the lungs. She 
had fever, and the agony in her side was great when 
she tried to move. I tried to make her comfortable in 
the wretched bed. I gave her a drink of some hot 


THE TINKLE OF A TINY BELL 


325 


tiling on tlie stove tliat she had been trying to prepare. 
Then I drew a chair up by the bed and sat down on it. 

“Ann,” I said, “ I owe you some money, I want to 
pay you ; ” and took out my purse. Ann was always 
greedy of money ; she looked up eagerly and watched 
me. 

“Why did you go away that night without your 
money ?” I said. 

“ Eh she said, her face darkening a little. 

“ I would have paid you,” I went on. “ You know 
I always pay you, no matter what happens. See, here 
is your dollar.” 

Her lingers closed greedily over it. 

“ And there’s another thing, Ann,” I said. “ I want 
that little lamb of Baby’s. You ought not to keep it 
away from me, it belongs to me. I always thought 
you were an honest woman, Ann.” 

“ Sure and I am an honest woman,” she said, hotly. 

“Well, is it honest to be keeping away from me 
what’s my own ?” 

“It can’t do you no good.” 

“ You might as well say that little pink calico frock 
of your little girl’s couldn’t do you any good, because 
you couldn’t use it. What would you think of me if I 
got hold of it and kept it, and wouldn’t give it back to 
you ?” 

A dark flush rose to the woman’s face. 

“ I am an honest woWan,” she muttered. “ I never 
kep’ a happorth that I didn’t own. I’ve got nothin’ 
on my conscience. You can see my bank-book. I’ve 
got no call to steal.” 

“ That’s what I always thought till I And you won’t 
give me back the little lamb that’s mine. Give it to 


326 


THE TINKLE OF A TINY L ELL. 


me, and I’ll think you are an honest woman.^ She 
muttered and turned restlessly on the bed ; this time the 
pain the motion gave her did not engross her whollyv 

“ I was always good to you, Ann. I always treated 
you well. Give me what is mine, and I’ll be content. 
The lamb belongs to me. The one that keeps it is no 
better than a thief.” 

“ I’m no thief,” she cried, “ I earn my own bit and 
sup. Nobody can say I don’t.” 

‘‘Very well, I won’t say you don't, if you give me 
what is mine. I’ll always be your friend, but you must 
give me what is mine.” 

I saw her put her hand under the bolster, and take 
out something ; she kept on muttering, looking at me 
distrustfully. ‘‘ It’ll be all right, if you let me have it, 
Ann. You’re so sick, you don’t want anything upon 
your conscience.” 

“ I never took a happorth from anybody. I can 
die in peace,” she said, in gasps, for the oppression 
seemed growing very great. I saw it was a key in her 
hand. I leaned forward, and gently, swiftly got it into 
mine. She still looked at me with distrust. 

‘‘ Yv here is it ?” I said, getting up. 

“ In the box anent the chimney-piece,” she said, 
pointing up the stairs. 

I climbed the stairs, which shook at every step. 
The attic, when I reached it, was so low I could not 
stand upright. The light was so dim I had to feel my 
way along, till I came to the bricks of the chimney. 
There beside it stood an old hair trunk ; there was a 
little ray of light coming in from a single pane of glass 
set in the gable of the house, this was all I had to see 
by. The wind was roaring outside, the snow was drift- 


THE TINEXE OF A TINT BELL. 327 

ing in through many broken places in the wretched roof. 
1 knelt down before the old box, and felt with my 
hands for the key-hole. I heard the woman moving in 
her bed, down-stairs ; I wondered if she had repented 
and would follow me up-stairs, and with the strength 
of fever, attack and injure me. My only companion 
in this far desolate spot was a mad woman ; no wonder 
that my hands shook as I tried in vain to find the lock. 

At last the key moved, with a strong efiort. I 
lifted the lid, and put down my hand. As I moved 
slightly the things inside, a faint tinkling sound struck 
my ear. I gave a cry, as my hand touched the fleecy 
covering of the poor little toy that my Baby had held 
against her breast when she fell asleep for the last time. 
T moaned and pressed it to my lips. It seemed to me 
that all ray agony and yearning had come back as at the 
first. 

A hoarse call from below recalled me to mj^self. I 
started up, but before I shut down the lid, I assured 
myself that there was nothing else that concerned me 
in the trunk. There was the old bank-book ; there was 
the precious little pink calico gown ; the bundle of 
clothes with the name pinned on them. That was all. 
I shut the trunk and locked it, and made my way down 
the rickety stairs. 

Ann was sitting up in bed with a disturbed and 
threatening expression. She had evidently attempted 
to follow me, but her pain had come on and made it 
impossible. I just showed her the lamb, and then put 
it out of sight, and sat down and tried to soothe her. 

‘‘Accusin’ an honest body,” she kept saying. I 
knew that nothing could be gained to satisfy any mind 
but my own, by what I could get her to say to me 


328 


THE TINKLE OF A TTNY BELL. 


alone. So, after a few moments, I told her I was goin^ 
away, and would come back, to bring her some tea and 
sugar, and some things to make her comfortable. She 
still looked unreconciled to me. 1 went hurriedly. 

The snow had ceased falling, and the sky was not so 
dark. I went to the nearest neighbor, and got a horse and 
wagon, and a man to drive me. Then I went to the vil- 
lage doctor, and to a magistrate. I explained what I had 
discovered. They were alert and interested, and in a very 
short time we were all at the door of the poor creature’s 
hovel. She was angry and stubborn when she saw the 
men ; she thought they had come to take her to the poor- 
Jiouse, which was the object of her greatest dread. Not a 
word could be got from her. She turned over with her 
face to the wall, and clutched the bed, as if to resist 
being dragged off from it. 

“ Now, look here, Ann,” said the doctor, sitting 
down beside her, “we’ve gone through all this be- 
fore. I made up my mind, last winter, I wouldn’t send 
you to the county house, no matter who said that you 
ought to go. I’ve come to give you medicine and to 
help you to get round again, so as to take care of your- 
self. This lady here promises to pay for taking care 
of you while you’re sick. Nobody wants to take you 
away from this house, while there’s anybody’ll take 
care of you in it, that’s sure.” 

Ann’s only answer was to turn her head and give a 
threatening look at the magistrate, who stood behind 
him. It was diJfficult to re-assure her about him, though 
happily she did not know his office. We all sat down, 
after the magistrate had brought in a few armfuls oi 
wood for her, to show his good will, and the doctor 
dexterously began his cross-examination. I don’t know 


THE TreTKLE OF A TINY BELL. 


329 


how, exactly, he managed it, but the results were all 
we could have asked. Of course, the testimony of an 
insane woman would have been worth nothing in 
a court of law ; but, thank Heaven, we were done with 
courts of law, and poor Ann’s only tribunal would be 
a higher one, and it seemed to me that it was very 
near. 

She evidently was distressed and uncomfortable 
about the murder, but it was not at all upon her con- 
science. The detaining of the toy from me was a much 
more serious matter in her eyes, as approaching to the 
recognized sin of theft. She defended herself warmly, 
and aturmed she hadn’t known I wanted it. That led 
her to speak freely of the cliildren, and of her taking it 
out of Baby’s arms. She remembered the night, Its 
stillness and darkness, and the time the train went out, 
and when Matilda went up-stairs to bed, while she 
looked in the window. It was all confused and ram- 
bling, but there was enough to satisfy any mind that 
was capable of judging, even without the proof that I 
had found hidden in the trunk up-stairs. She had no 
power to give her motive ; no power to uistinguish be- 
tween right and wrong ; she seemed to have no remorse 
for what she had done ; a dumb instinct of fear and 
apprehension had led her to keep out of the way while 
search was being made, and to resist us now when we 
probed incautiously. 

It was a strange study, that shattered mind. We 
sat beside her for an hour or more. The magis- 
trate, withdrawing himself from sight a little, wrote 
down every word she said. At last the doctor and 
he went away, leaving me to care for her till some one 
else should come. Before night, the power to give 


330 


THE TINKLE OF A TESTY BELL. 


even tlie poor, fragmentary story we had got from her 
was gone. Delirium and fever came, and the clouds 
closed in forever round the broken mind and heart. 

She only lived two days more. I staid with her 
until the last. When I sootiied and bathed and held 
in mine the poor hands that had dealt me such a mortal 
hurt, 1 thanked God *hat He had given me the chance 
to do it. I prayed Him to forgive her for even her 
unwitting sin ; I loosed the bands that, perhaps, only 
the sinned against can loose. As I knelt beside her in 
the dark, dreary hovel, with the night wind roaring 
outside, and the tire burning low within, her moans 
grew fainter, her breathing softened “ me foine ghirl 
— me foine ghirl,” she murmured, it’s all roight wi’ 
me, it’s all roight.” 

The hand in mine relaxed; her head fell back. 
I knew it was all right with her at last, poor soul ! 

These incidents made a great sensation in South 
Berwick. There had been no doubt of Macn ally’s guilt 
before. It came like an awful revelation to them, the 
nearness they had been in to the shedding of innocent 
blood. They accepted the facts simply, and honestly 
acknowledged their mistake. My one desire now was 
to get this news to the ears of Macnally, if he should 
be living still. To that end I did everything that lay 
in my power to give it publicity. But it was little use 
fanning the flame. It was a burned-out sensation. 
The local papers, of course, gave it great prominence. 
But the larger journals, which were the only ones that 
would convey it far enough to reach him, contented 
themselves with an insignificant paragraph or two, 
which might most easily be overlooked. I put advertise* 


THE TINKLE OF A TINT BELL. 331 

ments in the papers, English and Irish, but they never 
met any eye for which they were intended. 

Of course, at the very first moment, I wrote the 
Emlyns Several weeks passed, and no word came. 
At last, 1 wrote directly to their banker in Paris ; in a 
few more weeks came an answer, inclosing my letter 
to Mrs. Emlyn, and a very civil note from a clerk, 
telling me the news which I must have missed during 
my week at South Berwick, where I saw no papers. 
Mrs. Emlyn had died at Naples, after a very short ill- 
ness. Colonel Emlyn’s condition of mind, wrote the 
civil clerk, rendered him unable to receive or answer 
letters. The young lady and gentleman who had been 
under their charge had sailed for New Orleans some 
weeks before. He was unable to give me their address. 
The door was shut in my face, in fact. I wrote again, 
asking that the New Orleans address might be found 
for me, if possible. But no answer ever came. Prob- 
ably the civil clerk had left the office. I wrote letters 
to Naomi and to Ned. But New Orleans is a big 
place, and Naomi and Ned were small people. It was 
no wonder that they never got them, with that very 
general superscription. 

My heart was sore with this reopening of past 
wounds and coming of new ones. The desolation that 
had swept over all that happy summer was complete. 
My good friends ; how many tears I shed for the one 
in her foreign grave ; the other, in his no less dire 
oblivion. The two children of their love, set adrift 
upon the world at an ag6 so tender ; how hopeless and 
dark the mystery looked ; 

“If t\iou wert all, and naught beyond, oh, earth I” 


CHAPTEK XXY. 


THE EASTERN MOON. 


“ The pure calm hope be thine, 

Which brightens like the eastern moon, 
As day’s wild lights decline.” 


Kel)le. 


WO or three years after this, I can’t exactly remem- 



her when it happened, a great piece of good for- 
tune befell Sophia. Some distant relative left her what 
was quite a grand fortune for a person in her walk of 
life. She received the news characteristically. It was 
quite unexpected, but she bore herself with great 
equanimity ; in fact, towards me, in almost utter 
silence. After the first glow of satisfaction, a gloom 
settled on her. I think it seemed to her “ on the up- 
rooted flower, the genial rain.” What might it not 
have been, if it had come earlier, and when there was 
some object in making our lives happy. 

After a few days, she came to me, and I saw she 
had been bracing herself up to the necessary discussion 
of plans. 

“Well, Sophia,” I said, with something between a 
smile and a sigh, “ I suppose I am now to take care 
of myself. You have done it for me a good while. I 
am not unreasonable enough to feel hurt. You must 
tell me just what you mean to do, and I am not going 
to make the least objection.” 


[ 332 ] 


THE EASTERN MOON. 


333 


She vraved her hand angrily, as if she disdained to 
answer me. 

“ I am going to lay a plan before you,” she said. 
“ It’s for you to say whether it shall be carried out. I 
want something to do. I couldn’t be happy to sit down 
and eat up my income. If you’re willing, I want to 
take a large house, and fit it up, and rent out my rooms, 
and furnish private meals. The best rooms shall be 
fixed for you. You won’t be bothered about anything ; 
but it will give me something to do. It will be an 
interest. I can make money — Heaven knows what 
for — ^but it will be something to make it.” I saw the 
wisdom of the plan at once. Our small and monoto- 
nous life had been very wearing to Sophia. When her 
work was done, which was all too soon, she had not my 
resources. She could not put a book between her and 
retrospect, nor go out and be soothed by a sunset sky 
or stimulated by a strong wind. She was much more 
unhappy than I was, in those days. I welcomed the 
change for her, and gave her all encouragement. 

Her face wore an altered look from the day it was 
decided on. I entered into it with all the heart I could 
muster. We went out, day after day, hunting houses. 
At last one was selected — or rather, two. They were 
large — not new houses — on an avenue that had seen its 
best days, but was still very respectable. Indeed, a 
good many people of distinction lived there still ; but 
the tide of fashion had rather set away from it, and had 
left it quieter, and, consequently, much nicer than 
many of its more popular neighbors. The avenue was 
broad. One of the houses was on the southeast corner 
of a well-built street, on which it opened; the other 
one was next it, on the avenue, on which was its en- 


334 


THE EASTEEH MOON. 


trance. The rent was reasonable. Sophia took them 
on a long lease. A communication was cut between 
them. The rooms were large and well-shaped ; they 
arranged in suites admirably. It certainly seemed a 
good investment of her capital. We furnished it pret- 
tily, and it was a great amusement. After all, money 
does bring a certain soulagement. 

My rooms were particularly to my mind. The 
parlor was on the ground floor of the corner house, 
almost level with the pavement ; it had three windows ; 
two on the avenue, one on the street.^ The houses op- 
posite were low ; we had sunshine a great deal of the 
day. Sophia insisted upon giving me this room, 
though it would have brought her in a little fortune, as 
a doctor's office. It was furnished charmingly, though 
simply. I delighted in the windows, in the flre-place 
(where I burned soft coal), in every piece of furniture 
that I got for it. My sleeping-room was on the floor 
above. Sophia had my meals served to me in my par- 
lor, in the daintiest manner. The servants were taught 
to consider that no one came before me. I had the 
best that could be found of everything. 

The house filled up. Sophia knew how to keep it 
well. She had found her niche. She had no troubles, 
no perplexities ; she loved to rule, and no one did it 
better. Her servants were models, her house grew to 
have a certain reputation of its own among peopl(3 of 
high standing. Her lodgers staid with her, year after 
year. There were applicants before-hand for any va- 
cancies. Sophia’s fortune was made. She was steadily 
making money, and what was better, steadily growing 
more at rest and better satisfied. 

And so the years went on. And I ? I was happy. 


THE EASTERN MOON. 


335 


“ My indomitable health,” as the doctor had said, had 
borne me np over the tide of misfortune. I was still 
young. The spring of life had not been broken. My 
sorrows, as far as I could dare to say so, were not the 
results of my sins. I was natural and simple-hearted 
enough to take the reaction when it came, and to lift up 
my head when the storm had passed. I had wanted to 
die, but since it had pleased God that I should live, I 
took life meekly, and tried to be happy in it. And I 
was happy. There was a dear church in which I daily 
said my prayers, there was a dear hospital whose wards 
were as familiar to me as the rooms of my own house. 
And there were my dear sunny windows, and my books, 
and flowers that bloomed for me, and a bird that sang. 

Yes, I was happy. It was a singularly peaceful, se- 
cluded life for one to lead in a great city. I had scarcely 
any acquaintances and no friends, except among the 
poor and dying ones to whom I ministered. Some- 
times the people who visited at the hospital, or whom 
I met at church, would try to approach me. That was 
the only morbid thing about me. I could not meet 
their advances. It would be only ripping open the 
wound again to make new friends. I resisted all at- 
tempts to be drawn at all out of my silent life. I 
suppose a certain mystery surrounded me. I know 
curious eyes followed me. Not unfrequently some of 
the families occupying Sophia’s rooms would make in- 
quiries of her ; it sometimes happened that flowers or 
fruit would be sent to me by the more determined ones. 
But they never succeeded in breaking in upon the 
sanctity and stillness of my life. 

It was now ten years since the death of my children. 
1 was a woman of thirty-four, not old looking for thir- 


336 


THE EASTERN MOON. 


ty-four. Several years of peace had given me a look 
of content, I dare say. The days were wearing on as 
usual. I had nolJiing to dread. There is one element 
of peace in that. All had liappened to me that could 
happen, it seemed to me. If Sophia should die, I 
should lose a friend, but it would not be beyond my 
strength to bear. If illness came to me, I felt I could 
endure it. I had grown so accustomed to the sight and 
thought of illness in the hospital, that I did not dread 
it as before. If death came — there was no question of 
mourning then. 

It was an afternoon in late November. I was tired 
from several hours at the hospital, but when I came in, 
I found my fire blazing, and a very cheerful look about 
my room. I was sitting in a favorite deep chair by one 
of the windows, a book in my hand, idly looking out 
and resting from my long day’s work. I felt a trifle 
dispirited that day. I had found myself out in a matter, 
in a way that discouraged me with myself. I had 
found I had a hope, which I had said daily to my- 
self was dead. I could no longer hide it from myself, 
that every day, when I walked through those dreary 
wards, I said inwardly, I may find him there. When- 
ever a new case was brought in, I found myseK watch- 
ing eagerly to see the face upon the pillow. I looked 
over the lists daily in all the men’s wards. I had seen 
80 many foreigners, so many men of education, lying 
there, unknown and friendless, I said to myself, why 
not he, if he still lives? There is just one chance in a 
thousand. There is no wrong in looking for him. That 
day I had seen a face that recalled his so strongly, I 
had scarcely had strength to look again. But it was only 
to be disappointed ; it was not he. I had been un- 


THE EASTERN MZ)ON. 


337 


nerved and unfitted for my work by it. I reproached 
myself, and came home heavy-hearted. 

So, when Sophia came in and sat down by the other 
window, as she often did towards twilight, to talk with 
me a little while, it was quite an effort for me to look 
up cheerfully and say, Well, what has been going on 
to-day 

“ The second fioor front in the other house is let,” 
she said, with a tone of satisfaction. 

“ Ah ? That’s good news. I hope to a good tenant ?” 

There couldn’t be a better, I should think. He’s 
only too swell, I’m afraid, for me.” 

“ Oh, you’ll be equal to the situation. I’m not 
afraid for you. Who sent them to you, or him — which 
was it that you said ?” 

For I was trying hard to be interested, with but 
very poor success. 

“It’s a gentleman. The British Consul sent him 
to me. I guess you’ve heard of him, that is, if you have 
read the papers.” There was a tone of satisfaction in 
her voice. Sophia liked to have distinguished people 
in her house. 

“ Why, what is he,” I said, “ to get himself into 
the papers ?” 

“ Well, he’s a speaker ; he gives lectures, and makes 
speeches. He’s all the fashion just now. He’s just 
come over from England. He’s a great man, accord- 
ing to the papers. He has written poetry — and 
things. Everybody’s talking about him, so they tell 
me.” 

And Sophia looked more satisfied than ever. 

“ You can’t mean— Conyngham ?” I said, looking 


up. 


338 


THE EASTERN MOON. 


“ Yes,” said Sophia, with importance. “ That’s tho 
name. Mr. Conyngham.” 

“Sophia!”! exclaimed, vividly interested. “You 
don’t mean to tell me he is coming here ?” 

“ Why not, to be sure ? Do people that write books 
want more tenderloins and mushrooms than other 
boarders ? I guess my table will do him, if he’s only 
got to write poetry and make speeches. It’s the swell 
people that I am afraid of — swell English people, more 
than any others.” 

“ I don’t care about the swellness of him, though 
he’s all that, I believe. But, Sophia, at'e you sure 

“ Sure as fate,” said Sophia, not altogether pleased 
with my remaining doubts. 

“ It’s the strangest, strangest thing,” I said, lifting 
up a book upon my lap. “ This is one of his books I 
was just reading. I thought, only last night, when I 
finished the first volume, what would I give to see him, 
to know what he looked like in the flesh.” 

“Well, naturally, I shouldn’t think you’d hanker 
much to see him any other way,” said Sophia, a little 
tartl}^ 

“ But, Sophia, what does he look like ? Tell me all 
about him.” 

“ I can tell you better when I’ve seen him.” 

“ You haven’t seen him ?” 

“ No, he came while I was out at market. Mary 
showed him the rooms. He seemed pleased. This 
afternoon his agent came and saw me, and engaged 
them, and told me who he was.” 

“ Does he bring a servant ?” 

“ No, he only has the two rooms, the parlor and the 
bedroom. The agent said he might want a good deal 


THE EASTERN MOON. 


339 


of waiting on, but be’d pay me extra for it ; he didn’t 
keep a man. It’s a very good price he pays ; he can 
have all the waiting on he wants. I can’t get on with 
people that put on airs, but I don’t take it he’s the kind 
tliat does.” 

“ I should think not I But — well, when does he 
come 

“ To-morrow afternoon ; his baggage is coming in 
the morning.” 

“ W eU, Sophia, be sure you take a good look at 
him and tell me what he’s like. I can’t help wonder- 
ing — wondering — what the man would look like that 
had written that book.” 

“ Why, don’t you like it ?” said Sophia, a little un- 
easily. 

“Like it! Ah — I’ve more than liked it. It’s 
stirred me to my depths !” 

“Well,” said Sophia, getting up, “it always strikes 
me people must be a little soft that go on that way 
about books. Strikes me I wouldn’t let anybody hear 
me talk that way if I was in your place.” 

“Do you think it would disedify Mary and But- 
tons ? I’ll be very careful. There’s nobody else that’s 
likely to come in range of my observations.” 

Sophia was jealous of my books, as she had nothing 
else to be jealous of, except the hospital. Poor soul, 
there was a time when she was very glad to see me 
take to them, but she had forgotten that. 

The next afternoon, when I came home, I thought 
with lively interest of the new arrival. I entered 
ulways by the door of the street ; he would go in by 
the avenue door, consequently, I saw no trace of his 
arrival. Sophia did not come in, as was her habit, 


340 


THE EASTEEN MOOIT. 


during the hour before dinner. I missed her less, be- 
cause, with the book in my hand, I sat by the window 
as long as I could see, and then sat with it in my lap 
before the fire, wondering, pondering, with my eyes 
fixed on the deep glow of the coals. It was a strange 
chance that had hrouglit that writer under the same 
roof with one to whom his books had been so much. 
But — with a sigh — it wouldn’t be much of a chance, 
strange and wonderful, to him. ISTo' doubt he was well 
used to finding flatterers under every roof, and I must 
prepare myself for being disillusionized. I had heard 
people of common sense always were disillusionized 
when brought face to face with genius, and I was a 
person of common sense, Sophia notwithstanding. No 
doubt he would be short and stout, material-looking 
and dull-eyed. Ah, yes, I must be prepared for this. 
I much preferred it to long hair and a poetic look. 
He was sure not to have that ; he was too great a swell, 
according to the papers. I didn’t mind the swellness, 
as I had said, one way or the other. That was an ac- 
cident of birth or temperament. But I earnestly 
wished he might not be stout. My mind dwelt upon 
his waistcoat. 

When my dinner was brought in, I asked the maid 
about Sophia. 

Ob, didn’t I know? She had told Buttons to tell 
me as soon as I came in. She was taken sick that 
morning when she came in from market, and was in 
bed with the worst kind of a pain in both her ankles. 
She was very bad. 

As soon as I had eaten my dinner, I went up to 
her. She occupied a room on the top flocr of the 


THE EASTERN MOON. 


341 


house, as cold and cheerless as possible. Nothing 
would ever induce her to do better for herself : even 
in summer, when her house was nearly empty, she still 
struggled up to this dismal spot. 

I found her very suffering, and necessarily pretty 
sharp. I took the matter into my own hands, and had 
a fire made up in the tiny little grate, and sent for a 
shade for her light, and put things in some sort of com- 
fortable order. Also, Buttons went privately out to 
get the doctor. She growled at all these things, but I 
think it pleased her to have me care for her. I sat 
down by her, and waited for the doctor. All her cares 
were very heavy on her. It was useless to reassure her ; 
she wasn’t used to being ill. She was determined in 
her own mind that everything should go wrong. 

“That man’s dinner,” she said. To think of his 
first dinner going up without her being there to see to 
it. She had smelt the soup burning all the way up to 
the fourth floor. She knew for a certainty he would 
go away in the morning. 

“ Did you see him when he came ?” 

“ See him ? No, of course, I didn’t. He had to 
come, with nobody to show him to his room. Buttons 
standing on his head because there was a fireman’s pro- 
cession in the street, Mary flustering away because Mrs. 
Graham had rung her bell, and Eliza, scrubbing out 
the bath-room, found him standing over her shoulder, 
and saying, ‘ Can you tell me where I’ll find my room V 
The clean sash curtains weren’t put up. The fire wasn’t 
made in the grate ; he had to ring his bell to order 
it. There’s just one thing about it. He’ll go away to- 
morrow, and I’ll have my rooms upon my hands. And 
it’ll be a while before the British Consul sends me any 


342 


THE EASTERN MOON. 


body else ; I might as well give up the house, if I can’t 
keep about and see to things myself.” 

It was no use to argue with her, though, of course, 
I tried to do it. I only hoped the doctor would be en- 
couraging when he came. But he wasn’t encouraging 
to me, at least, when I followed him down stairs and 
asked him his opinion. She was in for a long illness, he 
was afraid. It would be a wonder if she got out of her 
room all winter ; inflammatory rheumatism was not an 
easy thing to manage in a person of her temperament. 
He advised me to encourage her, and not let her know 
how ill she was, and keep her from fretting about the 
housekeeping. 

It was certainly good advice ; I had been anticipat- 
ing him, however ; but Sophia was not encouraged. We 
had our hands full. Buttons and Mary and I, for the 
next two or three days, in keeping her encouraged and 
in reassuring her about the house. I gave up the hospital, 
of course, and had to spend a good deal of the time in 
her room. (A good deal of the time I was ordered out 
of it.) Virtually, much of the direction of the house 
came on me ; I tried to spare her in everything. 

My interest in the new great man did not abate 
exactly, but I had not very much time to think 
about the matter. He did not go away, however, as 
Sophia had predicted, but seemed, on the contrary, to 
be establishing himseK for the winter. Notes with 
magniflcent monograms were coming all the time. Car- 
riages were driving up to leave cards, or bring impor- 
tant-looking gentlemen to caU. Buttons gave up the 
boot-blacking and the knives, and did little else but open 
the front door and “ run of arrants ” for the stranger ; 
an inferior boy was found to take his place down-staii-s. 


THE EASTEEN MOON. 


343 


One day, sitting in the window, I saw a carriage 
drive up. ' The footman took a note, and brought it to 
the door. I saw a girl’s face at the carriage-window — 
the sweetest, most earnest, enthusiastic face. She 
looked up at the house with such a world of expression in 
her eyes. He, the hero of her dreams, the genius who 
had enthralled her soul, lived there, behind that red- 
brick wall, with its plain, square windows and white 
shades. How could they look like other red-brick 
walls and windows ? The house was transformed for 
her ; she devoured it with her eyes ; her gaze lingered on 
it as the carriage drove away. 

Pretty young thing ! it made me a little ashamed of 
my enthusiasm for his books though, since I had such 
immature company in my enthusiasm. I couldn’t un- 
derstand how they could have appealed to an imagina- 
tion so young, a heart so inexperienced. To me, they 
would have been written in a dead language at her age ; 
at least, so it seemed to me, as I recalled myself. But, 
in some matters, we sometimes do our youth injustice. 

That afternoon I took a collection of papers up- 
stairs to Sophia, and, sitting down, proceeded to amuse 
her with the divers descriptions, histories, and criti 
cisms of her interesting lodger. It really eased her 
pain considerably. She took a personal pride in his 
successes. 

“How, Sophia,” I said, “we’ll skip his parentage; 
there’s half a column of it. I’m sure we don’t care 
who his great-grandfather was, and his distinguished 
uncle that married Lady Somebody. It’s evident they’re 
all vastly above us. We concede it. But they weren't, 
oh, joy I titled people — only landed gentry, and all that. 
How I’m happier. I can get along with landed gentry, 


344 


THE EASTERN MOON. 


and not surrender my independence altogether. But 
titled people! How could I bear the weight of it. 
How we come down to something personal. Ah 1 we’ll 
read that.” 

“Bead all,” said Sophia, snappishly, “if you’re 
going to read any. I hate skipping about so.” 

“Well, we won’t skip any more after this. You 
shall have everything Jenkins has* to say about your 
lodger. How listen.' (I car^t go back among his an- 
cestors.) ‘Leonard Conyngham was born about the 
year 18 — (why can’t they be accurate on a point so 
vital !) on the family estate, near Mallow. (I wonder 
in what part of Great Britain Mallow is. I must look 
it up on the map.) He is one of a large family ; one 
brother has distinguished himself in the army, another 
in the navy. A third is a prominent barrister. Two 
of his sisters have married into the nobilit}^, one being 
the wife of Lord Massy, and another married to Sir 
Gerald Austen.’ (Sophia, do you hear that 1 ‘ It’s a 

very fine thing to be brother-in-law.’ I knew he was 
more than ‘ landed gentry.’)” 

Sophia showed so much irritation in her face that I 
suspended my pleasantry. 

“ ‘ It will be seen by this, that our illustrious visitor 
is entitled to the highest social consideration, entirely 
apart from his distinction as a man of letters and an 
orator. The suddenness with which he attained his 
present height of popularity may be accounted for by 
a little retrospect. These particulars have been fur- 
nished us by one well acquainted with his family 
history, and may be relied on as entirely accurate. 
Young Leonard showed very little of the genius which 
has since distinguished him during boyhood and earl;y 


THE EASTEEN MOON. 


345 


youtli. [le graduated at Dublin University without 
much distinction as a scholar. (Why Dublin Uni- 
versity ? I should have preferred Oxford, it seems to 
me, if I had been a ‘landed gentry.’) His family were 
anxious that he should enter the church, for which he 
had been designed from childhood. This he refused, 
and an estrangement from them was the result. He 
then threw himself into some political movement, with 
more generosity of spirit than worldly wisdom. The 
country was in its usual disturbed state; his party 
was unsuccessful in its attempt ; he was obliged to flee 
the country, and for several years his family were in 
great anxiety about him. About seven years ago he 
returned from Australia, where he had been laying up 
the stores of experience and adventure from which he 
feeds his marvelous fancy. He then resumed his place 
at home, and devoted himself to the study of the law. 
But it may easily be guessed he did not stay long 
in bondage to this exacting mistress. He was meant 
for higher things than pleadings and practice. The 
publication of his flrst book took the public by storm. 
His maiden speech in Parliament, to which he had been 
returned, was equally a bomb-shell. Two such gifts 
are rarely allotted to any one man. At once an orator 
who can thrill crowds with the Are and eloquence 
his tongue, and a writer, who can hold them with the 
magic subtlety of his pen, we do not hesitate in saying, 
Leonard Conyngham stands foremost among the younger 
men of the nineteenth century, and has before him a 
future which can only be limited by his own failure 
of will and steady purpose.’ Hear, hear!” I cried, lay- 
ing down the paper. “ Sophia, that’s very flne writing. 
But he is undoubtedly a great man, and as long as he 


346 


THE EASTERN MOON. 


pays his bills promptly, I wouldn’t think of turning 
him away because he’s so distinguished.” 

“ I don’t know what you see so much to laugh 
about,” said Sophia, rather tartly. Everybody’s pay- 
ing him all the attention they know how.” 

“ Of course they are, and they’re quite right about 
it. He is a very remarkable sort of person, I am sure. 
Here’s a long article in the House Journal, It tells 
you all about his dinner engagements, the receptions 
that have been given him, the on dits about him, his 
personal appearance. Ah ! it seems he isn’t short and 
stout. Hear this : ‘He is rather slender, below middle 
height. His hair is dark, his eyes are very brilliant, 
rather deep-set. His expression is one of profound 
melancholy.’ Think of that, Sophia. What if he has 
dyspepsia ? Perhaps the biscuits don’t agree with him. 
Fancy if you are anyway responsible for that profound 
melancholy. Don’t you tliink you’d better speak to 
the cook about it ? Isn’t it possible that her baking 
powders may have alum in them? I feel that you 
cannot be too careful with such a great man in the 
house. But hear ; there’s something else that’s very 
interesting. He is very inaccessible, the paper says.” 

“The street cars pass the house,” cried Sophia, 
angrily. “That shows how much good there is in 
newspapers.” 

“It doesn’t mean that, I think, you know. It 
means he is hard to get to go to dinners ; he avoids 
people, and all that sort of thing.” 

“ I don’t know about that, I’m sure,” said Sophia, 
subsiding. “ It’s no odds to me how often he goes out, 
liis dinner’s always ready for him here. He pays foi 
it, and he’s entitled to it.” 


THE EASTERN MOON. 


347 


“ And I’m sure he likes it, else he would go out 
oftener, and eat other people’s dinners,” I said, molli- 
ently. Sophia didn’t know about that either, she was 
sure. 

And here’s a melancholy account of a distin- 
guished family that had a reception for him, and he 
wouldn’t go. The young lady of the family was so 
heartbroken she refused to come down-stairs. I wonder 
if it was that pretty girl I saw here in the carriage ? 
And as to the balls he won’t accept, and the breakfasts 
and the suppers and the dinners that he will not eat, 
really, it’s a crying shame ! They’d keep a poor fam- 
ily till the youngest baby came of age. It shows a 
want of heart ; it shows a want of principle, if one may 
say so.” 

While I was thus endeavoring to divert Sophia 
from her rheumatism, Mary came to the door. She 
was blushing and looked excited. She handed Sophia 
two tickets and a check. 

“ WeU ?” said Sophia, sharply. 

Mary explained that Mr. Conyngham’s agent had 
just called and asked for her. He said he wanted her 
bill for the two weeks’ board. She had told him her 
mistress was sick, and couldn’t see him. Also, that she 
never made out bills. The ladies and gentlemen 
always sent the money in when it was due, and when 
they went away for good, she gave ’em a receipt in full 
*f they wanted it ; but she wouldn’t be at the pains to 
make out bills for people every week. The agent said 
it was a mighty poor way, and she’d get in trouble if 
she didn’t look out ; but he wrote her a check, and put 
the roll of bills back in his pocket. Then, when he 


348 


THE EASTERN MOON. 


was going away, lie seemed to think of something, and 
turned back and said : 

‘‘ Here’s a couple of tickets ; give ’em to your mis- 
tress, and tell her maybe she’ll be well enough, by to- 
morrow night, to go and hear Mr. Conyngham.” 

Sophia looked almost pleased as, she turned the tick- 
ets over in her fingers. “ Much good they’ll do me,” 
she said. And she told Mary a long message to take to 
the laundress, as if she weren’t gratified at all. But 
when the girl was gone, she handed the tickets to me, 
and said : 

You must take one of the servants with you, and 
go to-morrow night.” I laughed at the idea and begged 
her to excuse me. But before the night came, I found 
she had set her heart upon my going. I resisted quite 
firmly at first. It was the sort of thing I did not feel 
at home in doing. I often went out at night, with a 
servant, during a Mission every night for nearly two 
weeks, and on Festivals, and at many other times. 
But this was difterent. I should see the world ; I did 
not want to go. And yet it was selfish to resist Sophia, 
who was feverishly set upon it ; and it was, after all, a 
thing which might give me great pleasure. Though I 
had taken the tone of ridiculing the august lodger, I 
did not forget that he had thrilled me deeply, that I had 
often longed to see him, to know more of him, before 
I found him under the some roof. 

Also, I was very weary of being in the house so 
much. Sophia was infinitely more tiring than a whole 
hospital. There, I had the recompense of feeling that 
I could give comfort. Here, when I had climbed up all 
those weary stairs to Sophia’s dull room, I was quite at 
a loss to know whether I brought pain or pleasure. On 


THE EASTERN MOON. 


349 


generd principl^js I continued to go and do my best, 
however. I bad a great longing to go to the hospital ; 
the sight of that face, whicli I said to myseK again and 
again was not his, had given me a restless desire to go. 
I might be missing some chance which would never 
come back again. But when I had sent for the servants 
and given them their orders for the day, and had 
mounted to Sophia’s room, and done what I could for 
her comfort and cheer, the day was too far gone to ad- 
mit of a journey to the distant hospital. I had scarcely 
time to get my usual walks, and my books were effec- 
tually routed, which was no doubt a satisfaction to So- 
phia, if she knew it. 

Therefore, when the evening of the lecture came, 
I was more ready than I should have supposed it possi- 
ble, to embrace the opportunity of getting a little diver- 
sion and fresh air. 


CHAPTEE XXVL 


* THE lectuee: 

“What I do, 

And what I dream include thee, as the wine 
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue 
God for myself, He hears that name of thine, 

And sees within my eyes the tears of two.” 

E. B. Browning. 

M AEY was detailed to accompany me. Sophia 
was more interested than she would acknowl- 
edge ; she wanted me to have a carriage ; she dictated 
to Mary what she should wear, to look at once respect- 
able and menial. When we got out into the clear, 
frosty, star-lit night, I wished that it had been five 
miles instead of five blocks that we had to walk. The 
great man’s carriage was standing at the door, waiting 
for him ; therefore I dared not lose the time, and we 
walked directly to the hall. It gave me a strange feel- 
ing to be going in out of that clear, still grandeur (for 
“ the streets were dumb with snow,” and the night 
seemed silent, for a city night) into the gay, gas-lit place, 
filled with bright faces and bright dresses. 

The agent had paid Sophia the compliment of 
pretty fair seats. We had to walk a good way down 
the aisle, now filling up with chairs, to our places, 
Mary following me with my wraps. The house was 
very full, and crowds were still coming in. When we 
[ 350 ] 


THE LECTURE. 


361 


had got into our seats, I found that we were separating 
a large party, or perhaps it was only two parties who 
happened to meet. Beside me was a young girl ; on 
the seat before her, a young man — very young ; and a 
line of people in front of us, who seemed to belong to 
him ; and directly behind us, more, who seemed to 
know them. The way in which they talked over and 
through us was quite remarkable to me ; they seemed 
to think, because I was not talking, I was not hearing. 
The very young man in front leaned over, and talked 
about the lecturer to the young girl, who was impa- 
tiently looking at her watch. 

“ They say he is always a little late,” she said. 

That’s his airs,” said the young man. “ People 
will put up with anything from him. There never 
was anything so ridiculous as the way he is run after.” 

“ I don’t blame anybody,” said she, with an abstrac- 
ted air. ‘‘He is the most perfectly satisfying man 
I ever met. When he has been speaking to you, you 
never seem to lose the sound of his voice ; it goes over 
and over in your ears — it is such utter music. And 
his eyes, ah! I never felt as if I were being looked 
through and through till I met them.” 

“ Come, now 1” cried a matter-of-fact little voice 
behind me, which indicated black eyes and a small, 
trim hgure. “ Come, now 1 how many minutes did he 

talk to you the other evening at the A s ? For, I 

suppose, it’s there you met him.” 

“ It was necessarily there, for it’s the only place he’s 
been,” she said, loftily, not giving the statistics called 
for. “ He went there, because of some family obliga- 
tion. He has only been to a few dinners, and one sup- 


352 


THE LECTUKB. 


per at the club. You can see he hates society ; he is 
suffocated with its inanity.” 

Bah !” cried the brisk voice at my shoulder. 

“ Airs,” said the very young man in front. 

“ As you willj” said the young woman, who evident- 
ly courted misinterpretation. “ I don’t suppose it con- 
cerns him or surprises him that everybody does not un- 
derstand him.” 

‘‘As long as you, and the eleven thousand other 
virgins do,” cried the little spitfire behind my chair. 

“ Beally,” said the other, “ I’m sorry that you take 
it so to heart. If he should by any chance be at the 
F s this week, I’U manage to present him.” 

“ He would be suffocated ; don’t think of it.” 

An admonitory and motherly voice, also behind me, 
checked this sharpness, in a very low tone, and then 
went on aloud. 

“ Have you heard much about him from the A s ? 

One doesn’t attach much value to what the papers say.” 

The young aesthetic person was only too glad to be 
permitted to tell all she knew on the subject, which, of 
course, had the weight of an authorized version, coming 

from the A s, who were his family’s friends. Her 

statements did not differ materially from the newspapers 
however, except for the sun-fiower-and-peacock-feather- 
iness of the descriptive terms. All that I gathered that was 
of any fresh interest, was that his profound melancholy, 
his utter disillusion, as she called it, was the result of some 
mysterious occurrence in his youth, of which his family 
had not the liberty, or perhaps, the power, to speak. 

“But dDesheseem unhappy, gloomy, in ordinary 
life ?” asked the mother of the sharp tongue, over my 
shoulder. 


TEE LECTURE. 


353 


“No-0, I can’t say lie does. He makes jokes and 
all that — but one sees the underlying bitterness.” 

She of the incisive tongue gave a little laugh. It, 
■was probable she "would have said something signally 
unsympathetic, but that, at that moment, we became 
aware that the vast audience was composing itself into 
an expectant silence. The young people about me grew 
instantly absorbed. I was so cured of my enthusiasm 
by this burlesque of it in others, that I found more inter- 
est in watching the young girl beside me, and for a few 
moments, I did not look up at the speaker. Notwith- 
standing her aesthetic affectations, she was quite genuine 
in her admiration ; her eyes glowed, her breath came 
quick, she bent forward to catch his words. I wondered 
how much of this was the effect of contagion ; he was 
simply the fashion ; girls were going mad about him, as 
they did about singers and actors ; they talked and wrote 
and dreamed themselves into love with him. It was a 
curious study ; this girl, at least, and the girl I had seen 
in the carriage window, were genuine about it. They 
were wasting a good deal of womanly feeling on a man 
who, to say the least of it, wouldn’t give them half a 
thought for all that they gave him. I quite enjoyed 
the girl’s quickening color, as his voice grew clearer, 
and met our ears more distinctly. I rather envied her 
the possibility of the emotion. 

Then I turned my eyes from her with a sigh, and 
slowly fixed them on the speaker. Our seats were a 
good way from him. I had no glass ; I could hardly 
distinguish his features. I don’t know why, but after 
he had spoken a few minutes longer, a strange feeling 
came over me ; the past came back in those vague, 
dumb yearnings that no lapse of years can kill. I was 


354 


THE LECTUBE. 


not thinking of what he said. I had not yet given my 
attention to him and to his subject ; I was not following 
him. But I was thinking of scenes and days long past. 
I was standing by the waves and feeling the salt spray 
on my face ; I was sitting in the ruddy light of the 
drift-wood fire, and listening to Shamus O’Brien. 

It is impossible even now to me, to tell the subject 
of the speakers words. In any intellectual way, I had 
lost the thread ; I had not begun with him, I was not 
thinking with him. From that I know what an orator 
he was, that by and by, a detached sentence or two he 
uttered thrilled me through and through ; and as he 
went on, I hstened, entranced and breathless as the girl 
beside me. 

It was one of the lower tones of his voice that sent 
a sudden, blinding thought fiaming through my mind. 
I leaned forward, I tried to see his face. I was too far 
away ; my agitation did not help me. I could not dis- 
tinguish a feature. The glass of my neighbor was lying 
in her lap. I took it up, scarcely asking her. She 
was too engrossed to do more than glance impatiently at 
me, and to look up again at the speaker. 

I turned the glass at hazard ; it fitted my eye, and I 
steadied it on his face. I gave a low cry. The glass 
fell from my hand. 

By this time the girl was gazing intently at me ; for 
the matter of that, the others too. 

“ You know him ?” she said, under her breath. 

“I am ill,” I said, “I — I — must go away.” 

Mary, very much frightened, had half risen. Every 
one was looking at us. 

“ How can you get out,” murmured the young gir 


THE LECTUEE. 355 

liesido me; “ through the aisles and all, it is so crowd 
ed.” 

The ladj behind me thrust a bottle of salts into my 
hand. Mary held it up to my face. A few impatient 
words from some disturbed people in front of me 
steadied me a little. I made a gesture to Mary to re- 
main. I might as well be there as anywhere. I could 
only die, wherever it was. The horrible physical 
sensations that succeeded the sudden shock of recocrni- 

O 

tion seemed to me like death. The crowd terrified me, 
they were so thick around me. I felt that I should 
smother if they did not give me air. I seemed to feel, 
by a cruel trick of memory, the same sickening sensa- 
tions that had overcome me in the court-room. 

When last Bernard Macnally and I had been face to 
face, what a different crowd, what a strangely different 
scene. All that was the same was I, who sat stunned 
and silent then as now, with faintness and tremor, and 
a failing heart. Ah, what a gulf rolled between us ! 
What barriers had risen up ! Kot a scaffold, but 
a throne, on which an admiring world had put him ; 
not death, but oblivion ; not shame, but praise. Oh, 
that I had found him stretched helpless, friendless, pen- 
niless, upon a pauper’s bed ! Ah, that that had been 
the face, not this ; that that had been the scene, not 
this. Its garish lights, its thunders of applause, its 
meltings of emotion, how terribly far they all seemed 
to push me out — out, shivering, into the darkness and 
oblivion from which I had come in ! I longed to creep 
away and hide myself. But I could not go. Cruel 
and hard, the crowd hemmed me in, unheeding. T and 
my wound were things of the past. I must take my- 
^eK away ; here there was nothing but the stir of grand 


356 


THE LECTURE. 


emotion, but the glitter of bigb pomp, but the thrill of 
mighty genius. I must take myself away. I was al- 
together out of place. I — why had I not died ? Why 
had I nourished up my poor little life of peace, to have 
it killed again, with no possible healing to come after. 
I lived, and from now, only to suffer, only to cause him 
suffering if he ever knew it. His wound was healed ; 
his life was at its brilliant noon ; all the reparation I 
could make him was to keep out of his sight, never to 
recall to him the fearful suffering that I had been the 
means of bringing on his life. I had, unwitting, done 
him worse wrong than his worst enemy could have 
done him. How, witting, I must have the courage not 
to do him any more. 

The face that I had seen had not been one to pity. 
Pity ! I had spent ten years of pity on him ; night and 
day, one prayer had underlaid all thought, all work, all 
speech ; a prayer for mercy on him, whether he should 
be among the living or the dead. How — God help 
me ! — I was the one to pity. His face, changed in a 
subtile sort of way, older and deeper-marked, was 
warmed with the glow of genius, strong with a sense of 
power. Where was my place now — mine — who had 
been bound to him with such bonds — yoked to him 
with the memory of such suffering ? Ah, my place ! 
It was not anywhere in the compass of his vision. If 
there was an humble spot far away out of his sight and 
the sight of those who surrounded him with their adu- 
lation, I might kneel on and pray for him. But it 
seemed to me, in that first moment of bitterness, that 
I had no longer any need to pray for him. He had 
all, he was all. God had more than answered all my 
prayers. By and by I should be thankful ; God would 


THE LECTURE. 


357 


be patient ; I could not be thankful now. I knew it 
would all be right in time. But, oh ! for the narrow 
cot in the dreary hospital ward ! Why had not that 
prayer been answered ? Why — why — ? Oh, my Lord, 
bear with me ! 

At last they were going; the people drew long 
breaths after the tension of the past hour ; murmurs 
of deep feeling, a flush on almost every cheek, life in 
the dullest eyes, all paid their involuntary tribute to 
the voice whose echoes were yet in their ears. Even 
the lad before me seemed sobered and less trifling for 
the moment. The young girl beside me turned her 
shining eyes upon me ; she had not lost thought of 
me, I knew. 

“ You are better she said. 

“ A little. It will be all right when I can get into 
the air.” 

But instead of getting better, it was getting 
worse. The stir, the noise about me, the necessity for 
physical effort, all brought back my faintness. The 
lady behind me saw my pallor, and leaned over, and 
talked encouragingly to me. But the young girl had 
but one idea ; what was her hero to me that the sight 
of him had overcome me so ? She remained in her 
seat, though her companions had risen. 

“You — ^you have heard Mr. Conyngham before?” 
she said, with the directness and ignorance of youth. 

“ She is too ill to talk,” said the older lady, with a 
glance at my tortured face. 

“ I thought, perhaps,” she said, with the persistence 
of a one-idead person, “ that she knew him, and that 
suddenly seeing him had made her ill. Was it so ?” 


358 


THE LECTUEE. 


“ I want to get into the air,” I said, turning from 
her, and strugghng to m j feet. 

The elder lady gave me her hand, and her kind aid. 
Mary, excited, and rather helpless, kept the crowd off 
on the other side. We got out, I don’t know how. 
The air revived me. 

“ It’s horrid,” I said to the kind lady, when she was 
satisfied to leave me, “ the feeling faint in a crowd. It 
has happened to me several times in my life. I am so 
sorry that I had to trouble and disturb you.” 

I hoped she would tell the girl, and make her 
know I had been often so before. What if she met 
him again and told him of the incident ? 

The stars shone down cold and keen upon that mis- 
erable walk. When we were just nearing the house, 
a carriage drew up with rush and bustle, at the other 
entrance. A man sprang from the box, rang the bell, 
and returned, and opened the door. I caught sight of 
Macnally as he stepped out and passed quickly into the 
house. It was several minutes before they heard our 
ring. 

“ They’re so taken up with waiting on the other 
door, and you look fit to drop,” said Mary, pulling 
again at the bell. “ They might attend to somebody 
else but him, I think. But to be sure it was beautiful, 
wasn’t it ? Ah — there’s that boy.” 

And, to hurry him, she pounded a little on the paneL 


CHAPTEE xxyn. 


THE COENER ROOMS. 

•‘Love is subtle, and doth proof derive 
From her own life that Hope is yet alive ; 

And bending o’er, with soul-transfusing eyes, 

And the soft murmurs of the mother-dove, 

Woos back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies ; 

Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope flrst gave to Love.” 

Coleridge 

T he next morning I did not dare to go up to Sophia 
The dark circle round my eyes, and my white face, 
would not escape her criticism. I must make up my 
mind what I meant to say before I saw her. So I sent 
her word that I had a headache, and that when I felt 
well enough I would come up. I wandered about my 
room aimlessly and feverishly. All the little occupa- 
tions and interests of my daily life wearied me. I 
tried to pull the dead leaves from my flowers and to 
give them water, to feed my bird, to put the books and 
ornaments in the order that pleased my eye. It was 
generally a happy hour’s employment, with the sun 
pouring in upon my pretty room. To-day I threw 
myself down in my chair and knew that it would be 
an interest no more. There was one interest ; what was 
that ? Listening for the opening and shutting of that 
other door, waiting hidden behind the curtains for his 
going out. I hated myself, but on such things as these 

[ 359 ] 


860 


THE CORNER ROOMS. 


my interests must centre while the same roof covered 
us. I knew myself so well ; I had gone through so 
much. I knew what had been and what would be, 
with a grinding certainty that left small space for hope. 

At last he went out, passing out upon the sidewalk, 
but a few feet from where I watched him. He walked 
with a firm, quick tread. His face had a pre-occupied 
expression, but I failed to find on it the melancholy 
that was ascribed to it. You would have called him 
still a young man. The slightness and grace of hia 
figure, and the way he carried his head, were sure notes 
of young manhood. He wore no beard. The lower 
part of his face was firm, almost firmer than one liked. 
I should have said he had forgotten how to laugh, 
though he might still know how to smile. The expres- 
sion of his mouth was difierent from of old, more 
changed than the expression of his eyes. It was a 
large, though well-formed mouth, with an upper lip 
that curled a little, though it was not very short. In 
other days there had been the greatest sweetness in 
the curves and movements of his mouth ; there now, if 
anywhere, was the look of melancholy of which they 
talked. His face was always colorless ; his nose was 
very straight and perfect ; his eyes seemed to me much 
deeper set, and more shaded by heavy brows, than they 
had been when I had known them first. His broad, 
high forehead was very white, the short-cropped hair 
that scarcely admitted of a parting had touches of gray 
all through it. 

After he had walked quickly out of sight, with the 
clear, fresh morning air in his face, I resolutely set my- 
self to find some occupation. I sent for the servants, 
as usual, a.nd gave them the orders which the day 


THE CORNER ROOMS. 


361 


required. I went to the store-room, and gave out the 
stores they needed. I heard their complaints, and un- 
dertook to convey to Sophia whatever it was impossi- 
ble to solve without her. I had never loved these 
details, but since Sophia’s illness I had found a certain 
pleasure in doing something distasteful for one who 
had served me so long and so unselfishly. Now, even 
that was gone ; it was all hard duty, and I hated it. 

When there was nothing else to occupy me, I started 
slowly up the stairs. I knew, sooner or later, I must 
face Sophia. I should not gain courage or cunning by 
delay. When I reached the second-story hall, I paused 
to look out a window. What should I say to Sophia, 
if she asked me to describe him ; how dissemble my 
emotion if she made me talk about him ? The door of 
a room stood open ; to gain quiet and time for thought, 
I wandered in. This suite I knew was vacant. 1 
pushed the door shut, and sat down in the window. 

My parlor, as I have said, was the corner room of the 
corner house. This room was its counterpart on the 
floor above, with a hall bed-room adjoining. At one 
time these rooms were let as one suite with those Mac- 
nally now occupied, which adjoined them, in the 
avenue house. The connections between the houses, 
which Sophia had had cut originally, were one through 
the lower halls, at the head of the basement stairs, and 
another at the top, tlirough two of the fourth-floor 
rooms. But when a large second-story suite was 
wanted, several years after, she had had a door cut 
from the parlor of the corner room into the front bed- 
room of the house on the avenue. It had been used for 
a year or two by the family who took it then. After 
they left, she found the rooms rented more profitably 


oG2 THE CORNER ROOMS. 

in smaller suites, so the door was fastened up ; and an 
extra closet being desired in the bedroom of the house 
on the avenue, she had one built in front of the door. 
All these circumstances came into my mind, as I sat by 
the window. I had a curiosity to know whether the 
door had been nailed up or not. I turned the knob — 
it was locked. I could not tell whether it was nailed 
till it was unlocked. Sophia’s key-basket was in my 
room. I don’t exactly know what I meant to do. I 
went down-stairs and got it, refusing to think. 

When I came up, I closed the door that led into 
the hall, went across the room, and pushed away a sofa 
that stood against the door. The key fitted readily into 
the lock, and turned. I pushed the door ; it yielded — 
it was not nailed. I stopped a moment to think. I 
knew there was no one in the rooms occupied by Mac- 
nally. The last two weeks had shown that his invari- 
able practice was to go out betvveen eleven and twelve, 
and not to come back before five. I knew the servant 
had arranged his rooms, and had gone out of them ; I 
heard her in another part of the house at work. I 
don’t know why I wanted to go ; it was nothing ; there 
was no harm. I would go in. I pushed the door 
open. A piece of muslin had been hung over the door, 
under the pegs which were nailed across the top. It 
was perfectly dark ; the closet-door was shut. I opened 
it carefully, and listened. The room was vacant — the 
only sound was the ticking of a clock. Then I took 
out the key of the corner room, and dropped it in my 
pocket, and pulled it shut after me ; and then, with a 
beating heart, pushed open the closet-door, and found 
myself in the rooms occupied by Macnally. My first 


THE CORNER ROOMS. 


363 


care was to go across the room, and quickly slip tlie 
bolts of both the doors that led into the hall. 

Then I stood still, and tried to control my agitation, 
and to look about me. The room used as a parlor was 
large, with two wide windows looking on the avenue, 
where the morning sun streamed in. The fire-place 
was on the side of the room adjoining the next house 
beyond. The bedroom was separated from the parlor 
by large, double doors, which were, however, kept 
open ; and curtains, now drawn back, hung before the 
entrance. The furniture was unobjectionable, the car- 
pet dull and unobtrusive. Everything was in scrupu- 
lously neat order ; but it seemed the dreariest and most 
unhomelike place. It looked like a man’s room — a 
man en voyage^ too. On one side of the table lay a 
heap of newspapers; on the other side, a heap of 
books ; in the middle, a heavy portfolio, tightly 
strapped. On the mantel-piece stood a box of cigars 
and a match-safe. The fire had been raked down, and 
put out, and freshly arranged to light. The chairs 
stood with their backs to the wall. It was a dreary 
place. The bedroom (but I merely glanced at it) was 
as orderly and as dull. A handsome dressing-case, with 
brass lettering — L. B. M. C. — upon it, stood on the 
bureau; two trunks stood in prominent places; the 
wardrobe doors were shut ; the bed well made, with 
snowy linen ; it was anything but a room that belonged 
to anybody. It was a room to stay in for as short a 
time as possible, and to go away from without a feeling 
of regret. 

And this was the sort of life to which he was con- 
demned, a man with the sensioilities, the tastes, the af- 
fections which make home dear. But for the love that he 


864 


THE COKNER ROOMS. 


had spent on me, but for the fate that had linked him 
with my terrible sorrow, he need not have been a wan- 
derer, a homeless man. I knew he would bear that 
scar upon his heart forever. I knew he would never 
lift a child in his arms without a pang. I knew fire- 
side delights and merriment would always give his heart 
an ache. 

There came a subtle little solace in a thought I had ; 
there was something I might do yet, beside say my 
prayers for him. I might, for the weeks or months he 
staid here, make these rooms something more like 
home. With poor little natures like mine, there is 
such comfort in having something to do, when sorrow 
presses. It is so terrible to fight out a sorrow, a tempta 
tion, with your hands idle in your lap. My heart 
revived when I looked about the room, and thought of 
all that might be done to make it pretty. I had a 
plan ; it matured in all its details with such rapidity. It 
never would be found out, for the chambermaid was a 
mere machine, with no more powers of observation than 
a Universal Wringer. She would never ask how the 
things came there. She would dust them and put them 
back with equal interest, whether they were mummies 
or royal Worcester porcelain. As for Macnally him- 
self, he would feel them — like a man, perhaps, he would 
not notice them. 

It must be done gradually. To-day, it would suffice 
t*) bring up the lovely table-cover from my own room, 
t » put a shade over the lamp upon the table, to put 
a ivay on the book-shelves all but the morning papers 
a id two or three books that looked as if they had been 
freshly read; to fill a glass with violets and put them 
on the mantel-piece, where they would show their dim 


THE CORNER ROOMS. 


365 


outline in the mirror, and shed their delicate perfume 
on the air. I pulled the chairs about in more becom- 
ing attitudes ; I moved the great chair up before the 
fire ; I brought a footstool from the other room, and 
put before it ; I draped the curtains with a different 
expression. It did not look like the same room ; and 
yet the changes were so slight, they would be felt, not 
noticed — by a man, at least. I longed to see the effect 
when the fire should be burning, and the shaded lamp 
shedding out its soft light. But that I could only see 
in fancy. My work done, I slid back the bolts of the 
two doors that led into the hall, and went back quickly 
into the closet, which I examined carefully. It was 
not used, save for a gun-case in one corner, and an 
empty portmanteau in another. There was a second 
large closet at the other end of the room, and a ward- 
robe. This one, apparently, was not needed, for the 
man of fame was evidently not a man of luxurious pre- 
tension. The sheet, when it was dropped inside over 
the door below the pegs, looked like the wall. Ho one 
would think of questioning it, on a cursory glance. I 
listened well that the corner parlor was empty, pushed 
open the door, and got safely in the room, locked the 
door, and moved the sofa back. 

How I felt stimulated enough to go to see Sophia. 
I felt quite equal to my part. I found her more fret- 
ful than usual, because anxious about me. I had quite 
a high color on my cheeks, and she suspected either de- 
ception or a fever^ — she was divided between the two. 
She took hold of my hand unexpectedly as I was ar- 
ranging her pillow, and decided it was fever. 

“ I shall get 7ip to-morrow,” she said angrily, “ do(3 


366 


THE CORNER ROOMS. 


tor or no doctor. I’m not the kind to lie still and let 
other people do my work. I’ll get up if it kills me.” 

Heaven forbid ! I thought, as my heart sank. What 
should I do if she did get up ? I tried to persuade her 
I had nothing to do that tired me. If I weren’t doing 
this I should be going to the hospital.” 

Then I did not get exercise enough ; I was used to 
the fresh air. I promised her I would go out every 
day to walk. I would begin that very afternoon. I 
would have promised her anything ; my heart was in 
my throat ; what if she should persist in getting up ! 
She didn’t say she wouldn’t, but I hoped she was a lit- 
tle less firm about it. 

“ How about the lecture ?” she said suddenly, turn- 
ing her eyes full on me. 

“ Didn’t Mary tell you ?” I said ; “ the crowd and 
the close air and everything made me faint at first. 
And after that I couldn’t pay much attention. I was 
afraid I should be faint again and have to go out, and 
how I could have done that I can’t imagine, for the 
aisles were crowded ; you never saw such a crush. I 
don’t believe there was standing room for another per- 
son. The audience seemed perfectly carried away with 
him. He has a wonderful voice. I wish I could have 
listened to him attentively, but when once one gets the 
idea that one’s going to faint, it’s all over with one’s 
listening.” 

“ What does he look like ?” she said, with her eyes 
still on my face. 

“We hadn’t seats near enough to see his face with 
anything like distinctness. I hadn’t a glass. I bor- 
rowed one from the lady next me, but I only kept it 
for a minute. There isn’t much satisfaction in a glass 


THE CORNER ROOMS. 


367 


if it isn’t fitted to your eye ; turning and twisting and 
lengthening and shortening; sometimes I think it’s 
rather worse than none at all.” 

“ Then you didn’t see him ?” 

“ Yes, I saw him, just a glance. I should say he 
looked like the descriptions of him in the papers. I 
should say his face must be very fine, if you could 
watch it while he spoke. Kext time the agent pre- 
sents you with some tickets, I hope he’ll have the 
grace to give you better seats.” 

“ i^’ext time I’ll go myself. You’re a poor hand to 
do anything but read books and go to hospitals.” 

I could not tell whether she had any suspicion of 
the truth. She always had suspicions, but they were 
frequently quite wide of the mark. 1 knew she dis- 
trusted me, and felt there was something hidden, but I 
hoped it was that she fancied I was more ill than I ad- 
mitted, or that something in the house had gone wrong, 
that I was keeping from her. 

The result of her suspicions and her frettings was, she 
was much more ill before the day was over, and put 
herself back several weeks in her recovery. It was 
growing no easy task to soothe and please her. She 
worried about everything, whether it were doing well 
or ill. She would have dismissed every one of the ser- 
vants, if I had not interfered. They were all excellent 
in their way, and did their work with surprising fidel- 
ity, considering how much they were left to themselves. 

But the most fruitful source of anxiety was the 
standing empty of that second-story corner suite of 
rooms. Such a thing had never happened to her since 
she took the houses. Here it was the first of Decem- 
ber, and one of her best suites of rooms bringing her in 


368 


THE COENEK BOOMS. 


nothing. At this rate she couldn’t pay the expenses of 
the house ; she was running behind every month ; 
something must be done. 

It was in vain I assured her that she was making 
mouey every month; that I was keeping her accounts 
with all the care I could, and that I knew there was 
not a cent owing, and a comfortable amount on hand. 
And that she ought to be very thankful to be getting 
on so well, when she was not able to look after things 
herself. 

That gave her no comfort. Something must be 
done about it. I must put an advertisement in the 
papers. I remonstrated. It took from the dignity of 
her house to advertise the rooms ; she had never done 
such a thing before. It would be a direct loss of pres- 
tige. Then I must write for her to the British Consul, 
and to one or two of her former patrons. That I en- 
gaged to do, devoutly hoping that they wouldn’t know 
of anybody. 

Those rooms once occupied, my plans must fall 
totally to the ground. Even if I could get a pass-key 
to enter from the haU into Macnally’s rooms, I was not 
mad enough to run such risks. I never went into the 
other house, nor into any rooms but my own, and any 
servant meeting me on the stairs would have cause to 
wonder what had brought me there. 

My pretty bubble danced along the ground ; much as 
it pleased my fancy and soothed my dreary hours, I could 
but see how little chance there was that it could please 
and soothe me long. When Sophia got out of her room 
it would vanish, or, if the corner rooms were taken, it 
was gone. But the more fragile, the dearer it became. 


CHAPTEK XXYni. 


CONSTRAINED TO HEAR. 

“ Or is it over ? art thou dead ? 

Dead I and no warning shiver ran 
Across my heart, to say thy thread 
Of life was cut, and closed thy span I 

“ Could from earth’s ways that figure slight 
Be lost, and I not feel ’twas so ? 

Of that fresh voice the gay delight 
Fail from earth’s air, and I not know ?” 


Matthew Arnolds 



WEEK had passed. Every day I had been in 


Macnally’s rooms. By twelve o’clock they were 
in order, and the servant was out of them, and did not 
come near them again, till she came in to light the fire 
at five, before his return. I had full liberty, but I 
could not feel safe, or anything but agitated and uneasy. 
When my own rooms were locked, it was understood I 
had gone out, and no one was troubled as to where I 
went. As I was entitled to frequent the hall and stair- 
case of the corner house, on my way to my sleeping- 
room, which was on the second fioor, no one had cause 
for speculation if they met me there. Mr. Conyng- 
lam’s notes and cards and letters were always kept by 
Buttons, and presented to him in a bunch when he had 
come in in the afternoon, and the rooms were rarely 
entered through the day. 

The rooms had improved under my agitated hands. 
A stand of plants was in one windovr, an odd-looking 


[ 369 ] 


CONSTRAINED TO HEAR. 


nio 


little writing-table in the other. A better rug lay be- 
fore the grate ; on the mantelpiece stood an odd India 
vase, always filled with fiowers which looked at them- 
selves in the mirror. On the other side of Macnally’s 
little travelling clock I put a low brass candlestick with 
a red candle in it, and beside it a brass match-box with 
a serpent on the lid. His books increased every day. 

I put them in order on the shelves. I saw with satis- 
faction that he had taken more books out of his trunks, 
and added them to the others, and that he brought out 
a handsome inkstand, and seemed to be settling himself 
a little into place. 

The table now pleased me. He dined on it, so all 
the things had to be taken ofi at meals, and therefore 
there could be but few. But the cover was rich-toned 
and soft, and a pleasure to the eye. The lamp was 
solid and simple ; a couple of books always lay on it, 
the two or three I knew, by instinct, that he was read- 
ing, and a paper knife, a new magazine, and a bowl of 
blue cloisonne for the day’s harvest of cards and notes 
of invitation. The table stood opposite the fire-place, 
the wide easy-chaii between ; it seemed to me there 
must be an alluring suggestion of quiet evenings, and 
easy, unhurried mornings. 

The houses opposite were low; the morning sun 
poured in at the windows through the soft, pretty 
hangings. I took care that the lighting of the fire 
should never be forgotten in the afternoon at five. 
Mary was most trustworthy, but every morning, when 
I gave my orders, I reiterated, “ Hever forget to take up 
Mrs. Graham’s tea at five o’clock, and to stop on your 
way and light the fire in the second story front rooms.” ^ 

I don’t believe she ever forgot it. I often heard 
the crackle and the splutter of the coal from the corner 


CONSTRAINED TO HEAR. 


371 


room, where I had paused to listen if iny orders were 
strictly carried out. 

I had strange feelings those stolen moments that 1 
spent there, glancing at the books that he had just laid 
down, touching the chairs, the furniture that he had 
touched an hour before ; smelling the scent of his just 
burned-out cigar ; turning over the cards and notes that 
his eye had just passed over. They were strange, I 
cannot say happy, moments. I hated deception. I 
doubted sometimes if it were right or wrong. If it 
were wrong, it could only be as an injury to me, if ever 
any one should know. There could be no moral wrong, 
and for the motive that had moved me to it, and the 
hope that I had brightened even a few hours for him, 
I was willing to bear all the criticism that might fall 
on me, if ever it were known. But the constant 
watching against discovery, the constant agitation that 
contact with these inanimate things brought me, made 
my life anything but one of peace. I suppose my face 
showed my restlessness and damaged health. Sophia 
watched it narrowly and fretted herself worse every 
day about me. 

The day of which I speak had been a very de- 
ranged one in the house. Mr. Conyngham had begun 
the contrarieties by going out an hour later than iiie 
ordinary custom. That had disappointed the maid of 
the hour she usually gave to the arrangement of liis 
rooms. Then Mrs. Graham, a very exacting young 
matron, who had the third-floor rooms, had had a 
luncheon-party, and had taken the time of all the ser- 
vants she could lay hands upon. Sophia probably 
would have seen justice done ; but I had no authority 
to interfere. At tliree o’clock, Mr. Conyngham’s 
rooms were still untouched. At half-past three, the 


372 


CONSTEAINED TO HEAR. 


maid rushed hurriedly through them ; and at four, left 
them superficially arranged, and went to do the rest of 
her neglected work. The old lady who had the back 
rooms on the second floor of the corner house was en- 
raged that the cleaning of her windows had been neg- 
lected on account of the irregular festival of Mrs. Gra« 
ham. She sat all day with her doors open, to waylay 
the chambermaid, who had refused to come to her 
when she sent her word about the windows. While 
her door was open, and she was on guard just inside, 
I could not get into the corner room. I had some 
fresh flowers to put there, and a waste-paper basket 
that I had been embroidering. I was most impatient 
of her vigilant watch. 

It was half-past four when the arrival of a visitor 
obliged her to descend from the watch-tower. I took 
the opportunity to go into the corner room, and through 
the closet to the other rooms. There I found more to 
do than I had thought ; the maid had left things in 
very indifferent condition. I hurried through the 
arrangement of the flowers, and restored things to order 
as quickly as I could ; but, doing my very best, it took 
a good many minutes. The room was a little chilly. I 
knew Mary was still up-stairs, for I heard her voice 
distinctly talking with the Grahams’ waiter. The Are 
would not be lighted if I did not do it. I struck a 
match ; in a few moments it was blazing, cheerfully. 
[ went to put the waste-paper basket under the little 
writing-table in the window ; as I did it, I glanced out. 
The carriage that Mr. Conyngham always came home 
in was driving from the door. He was then already in 
the house. A fury of terror seized me. I sprang to 
the door and unbolted it, then hurried across the room, 
and got into the closet just as the parlor-door opened. 


CONSTKAINED TO HEAR. 


373 


But, unimagined situation 1 As I was eagerly turn- 
ing the knob of the door that led into the adjoining 
room, I was arrested by the sound of talking there. 

“ And where does this door lead to said a thin 
female voice. 

“ Oh, to nowheres in particular,” answered the voice 
of Buttons, as he slipped the bolt and shut ofi' my es- 
cape. “ ’Tain’t used for nothing. These is the rooms 
that goes together.” 

I heard her ask more questions, and appeal to 
some one who was with her. I was in an agony of 
fright. Through the door, which I held a crack open 
that I should not smother, I saw Macnally, and a gen- 
tleman with him. They were now seated near the tire. 
I could see them distinctly by its blaze, the curtains 
into the bedroom being drawn quite wide apart. If 
there had been any emotion strong enough to conquer 
my fear and shame, it would have overcome me when 
I recognized in the stranger Mr. Hardinge. I never 
can express half of the guilt and degradation that I 
felt; it had no proportion to the wrong that I had 
done. I could not forgive or excuse myself, now that 
I saw of what I had been in danger every day. Every 
feeling seemed to dwindle to nothing before the instinct 
of self-preservation, the womanly defence that nature 
gives us. At that moment I loved no one but myself, 
I cared for nothing but to escape from my intolerable 
dilemma. The motives that had led me into it seemed 
:.ontemptible. 

It was impossible not to hear what was being said 
\y the two men sitting at the fire. I could not miss a 
word, a syllable, scarcely an expression. They were 
talking of something that had occurred the night before. 
Mr. Hardinge had gone to him after last evening’s 


374 


CONSTRAINED TO HEAR. 


lecture, and spoken to liim. He liad, lie said, a foar 
that ho would not be glad to have him know him. 

‘‘ Far from it,” said Macnallj. “ I have been think- 
ing every day since I came of looking you up. 1 
should be a most ungrateful brute if I hadn’t 
meant to do it. I have been here less than a month, 
and I have been much occupied, but not enough to 
drive out the thought of what T owed to you. Of 
course it was an effort, breaking the ice, and going into 
things that one would be glad to get out of one’s mind 
forever ; I’m sure you understand.” 

“ Of course ; and that’s why I hesitated to speak to 
you last night. All these years I have said the same 
thing to myself, when I have wondered that I did not 
hear from you after you went home.” 

“ You got my letter from Liverpool, when I landed ?” 

‘‘Ho, I never have had a word from you since I 
left you on the steamer.” 

“ I can’t account for it — but — yes — perhaps I can. 
Wlien I landed at Liverpool, I was on the eve of a ter- 
rible fever. That letter to you was the last thing I 
remember. I got to my room at the hotel ; I remember 
my head was so bad I could scarcely tell the servant 
what I wanted, but he brought me ink and paper at 
last. I wrote to you. My feeling was I was going to 
die, and that must be done before I was past thinking. 
When the letter was sealed and directed, I sent for the 
man and gave it to him, with some money for a stamp. 
It was a supreme effort. I think it probable I sank 
down then into the stupor which was the beginning of 
my illness. The man proliably pocketed the money 
and mislaid the letter, or else I had misdirected it in 
my confused condition. One is as likely as the other. 
You must have thought me a bad fellow.” 


CONSTRAINED TO HEAR. 


375 


“ 1 always felt there must be some excuse. 1 had 
an idea that you weren’t — living, perhaps. Were you 
long ill 

“ A good many weeks, I fancy. I was at a strange 
hotel; my things weren’t marked, you know. They 
just took care of me for charity’s sake. A good Sister 
of Mercy nursed me ; none of my people knew any- 
thing about it. I — well, I might as well tell you, I 
owe it to you. I had been a little hardly treated at 
home, I thought. I had been an idle fellow, seK- 
willed too, I suppose. But it doesn’t seem to me they 
went the best way to work to get it out of me. How- 
ever, I don’t pretend to judge. I don’t think I should 
have been so stubborn if they’d been more lenient ; as 
I look back, I don’t see that they were quite justified. 
When I got over my fever, I was not over my resent- 
ment, quite. I was despondent and purposeless. I re- 
solved I would not go home. I had still a little money 
left. I sold some things I had, paid the expenses of 
my illness, and took passage for Australia, where I 
staid three years. At this moment, no member of my 
family knows that I ever was in America till now ; 
none, at least, but a little sister who was faithful to me 
always, and to whom I always wrote from here.” 

‘‘ That accounts for your never answering my let- 
ters, sent at random, to be sure, nor seeing my adver- 
tisements about the discovery that was made two years 
after, at South Berwick. You do not know of it?” 

‘•Yes, I know of it; after my return to England, 
I saw a paragraph in an old paper. It seemed an acci- 
dent that I should have found it. I never coukl get 
hold of any fuller statement, though I looked through 
many files of papers ; but I had not the advantage of 
a date to fix it. What I saw was a mere paragraph in a 


376 


OONSTKAINED TO HEAR. 


tom scrap of paper, the name of which I did not 
know.” 

“ Why did you not write to me 
I — I — hated to open the old wound again. It’s 
always hard to me to speak of things that have gone 
deep. It’s a bad trait, I know. It’s got me into the 
worst troubles of my life. I’m always promising my- 
self to begin a reformation.” 

And he looked up to his companion with the 
old sweet smile of South Berwick days. 

“Well, you may congratulate yourself you have 
begun the reformation now, I’m sure,” said Mr. Har- 
dinge. 

“ I’m going to carry it a little further,” said Mac- 
nally, a constrained, pained look succeeding the smile. 
“ Ji you can tell me anything of the other actors in 
that terrible drama, I shall — be glad.” 

“ I’m sorry to say I can’t tell you very much. The 
poor young mother I know nothing of, except that she 
went to Canada, after a few weeks or months. I think 
she can’t be living, or sane — one would almost wonder 
if she were, after what she had gone through. I think 
the more that she must be dead, because, at the time 
of the discovery at South Berwick, she did not come to 
me, or make any sign. I should have thought she 
would naturally hav'e come to me, hoping I might tell 
her something of you, or get to you some message from 
her. It was a painful case — a painful case.” 

There was a long silence ; Macnally sat gazing into 
the fire. At last he said : 

“ The woman, Sophia : I wonder if one could hear 
anything of her. She is not the kind that dies,” he 
added, with a short, bitter laugh. 

“ No,” responded Hardinge, “ she had fire and ven- 


CONSTRAINED TO HEAR. 377 

om enoiigh in her to outlive a dozen generations. She’s 
living, you may take your oath of that.” 

I wonder what would be the best way to go to 
work to find some trace of her ?” 

“ Advertising, I should think, or apphcation to some 
detective agency. If you hke. I’ll see what can be 
done.” 

‘‘ If you would, I should be very glad of it.” 

Mr. Ilardinge took out his memorandum-book. 
“Sophia — Sophia — do you remember the name? Of 
course, though, I’ve got it on the minutes of the trial.” 

“ Atkinson,” said Macnally, briefly. 

Mr. Ilardinge wrote it down, and put the book back 
into his pocket. “And the poor Emlyns,” he said; 
“ you know about them ?” 

“]N^o,” returned Macnally, briefly again, and I saw 
his face darken. 

“ Mrs. Emlyn died very suddenly, in Itlaples. She 
had but a few days’ illness, the result largely, I suppose, 
of her devotion to her husband and her anxiety about 
him. He was, you know, very much broken down by 
the excitement attendant on the trial ; he was losing his 
mind fast, but the poor lady did not live to see him a 
total wreck. The decline in his mental condition was 
very rapid after her death ; in a few months he was 
hopelessly imbecile. I believe he is still living, very 
tranquil and harmless.” 

“ And how about the children, Hed and Haomi ?” 

“ They were sent to an uncle in Hew Orleans. Hed 
was married last year. He is a fine young fellow, and 
will make a good lawyer. He’s persevering and manly. 
And Haomi is quite a beauty. By the way, she’s in the 
city now. She has been very much admired.” 

“ Pretty little Haomi !” said Macnally, with a sad 


378 


CX)NSTRAmED TO HEAR. 


smile. “ She was always faithful to me ; she proved 
my only friend.’’ 

“ Shall I send her word about you ? or shall I give 
you her address ? I could get it easily, though I can’t 
recall it at this moment.” 

“No, oh, no. I shall like to meet her without prep- 
aration. I wonder if the child would know me.” 

“I’m quite sure you wouldn’t know her, if you 
think of her still as the child. She must be — fully 
twenty-three. She is a young queen, tall, like her aunt, 
and quite commanding.” 

“I have a fancy that I should know her eyes; I 
shall like to test my memory. You say she goes much 
in society ? It will give me an interest — I will go out 
more. You don’t think it’s possible she would know 
anything of — the others ?” 

“No, I think there is little chance. She would 
have told me if she had had any news of them. She 
scarcely ever fails to speak to me of that time whenever 
I may meet her. Young as she was at the time, it 
made a very deep impression on her mind.” 

There was a little pause. Mr. Hardinge got up to 
go away. 

“ I’m going to ask you,” said Macnally, a little awk- 
wardly, as he rose, “not to let — anybody know of my 
identity with that unhappy man you saved from the 
gallows, not even little Naomi. I’ve a great aversion 
to its being known on the other side ; and to tell the 
truth, I’ve a great aversion to sensation as connected 
with myself in any way- It couldn’t do any harm, I 
know ; but I am sure you understand how painful it 
would all be to me if in any way the rumor sliould be 
started.” 

“I can understand it perfectly, my dear sir, and yob 


CONSTRAINED TO HEAR. 


379 


may be assured of my strict silence. But, you’ll excuse 
me for saying so, you will have difficulty in keeping it 
a secret, unless people have short memories. 

“You knew me easily, then?” 

“ In a moment.” 

“ I felt I was so changed. I depended on that, and 
on the chance of not being seen by the few people who 
were familiar with me then. It seems so long ago, and it 
seems as if it were such a secluded, narrow path I walked.’^ 

“Well, let us trust you won’t meet any Sutphen 
Coimty people. Sutphen County ! The name always 
gives me a kind of shiver. Do you realize how close a 
shave that was ? Two minutes before that jury came 
in, I would not have given sixpence for your chance.” 

I saw Macnally’s face grow white as the firelight 
played on it. An almost imperceptible shudder passed 
over him, but he did not speak. 

“ But for the testimony of that poor young crea- 
ture,” went on the lawyer, “ you must surely have been 
lost. You never knew what anxious hours I had lest 
she should fail us. If she had lost her reason, or had 
become hopelessly ill, or had wavered but a hair’s 
breadth in her testimony, there would not have been a 
ray of hope. But I needn’t have feared. A woman 
never breaks down till she has nothing to hold up.” 

At this moment the servant came in, bringing coal. 
Mr. Hardinge held out his hand, and Macnally followed 
him out of the room. The servant continued busy 
about the fire. In a moment Macnally came bacjk, and 
threw himself into the cliair before the fire. The 
woman went away, closing the door behind her. Mae- 
nally sat fixedly gazing into the flames, as if to read 
there the riddle of his life. He lay back in the chair, 
his head a little bent forward, his look deep and intent, 


380 


CONSTKAINED TO HEAR. 


not as men dream and wonder. The room was verj* 
still. There was snow on the ground outside, and the 
passing wheels were muiSed. His face was half turned 
towards my place of concealment. If I had made any 
noise he must have heard me. If I had made any 
movement he must have seen me. 

He never stirred ; I think it must have been a long 
half hour. I had a chance to burn well in upon my 
memory that pale profile, with the bent head and the 
intent eyes ; the relaxed figure that was so motionless ; 
the hand that was so slender, still and white. Tlie 
firelight shone, now broad and ruddy, now dickering 
and yellow ; but its changes never moved him from 
his fixed position. 

At last Mary came in to arrange the table for his 
dinner. He turned a Little restlessly and pushed his 
chair a trifie nearer to the fire. My terror was in- 
creasing ; in a moment the chambermaid came into the 
bedroom. If there were anything she kept in this 
closet, I was lost. She went to the washstand, poured 
fresh water in the pitchers ; lit the gas above the dress- 
ing-table, pulled down the window shades. Mary, by 
this time, had arranged the table and put on it the 
lighted lamp, with the shade upon it. Then, glancing 
around to see if everything were in order, she turned 
and left the room. 

As the chambermaid came again to the wash-stand, 
she muttered, “ There, I’ve forgotten my towels,” and 
putting down her pail of water, went out of the room, 
looking out the key of the linen closet on the bunch in 
her belt, as she went. I knew the linen closet was on 
the fioor above. She went out, leaving the door ajar. 
There was a bright light over the dressing-table ; I had 
to pass full in front of it, before Macnally’s eyes, if by 


CONSTRAINED TO HEAR. 


881 


chance he lifted them up from the fire. But it was 
the only moment, before the woman should come back. 

I remembered he would have heard the maid mov- 
ing about in the room, and my movements would be less 
likely to attract his notice. I pushed the closet door 
open ; and in the strong light of two gas-burners, 
wdlked across to the hall door, and out of it. He had 
not seen me ; there was no sound of his even tmming 
in his chair. 

When I got to my own room, and sank down and 
hid my face in my hands, I asked myself three 
questions — Was it possible anything would ever tempt 
me to do this thing again ? — Had I been punished or 
rewarded by what I had overheard? — Was I further 
from or nearer to Macnally than I had been before ? 

“ Nothing, nothing,” I answered, to myself, with 
passionate protestation, “ would ever tempt me to do 
this thing again.” 

I had been punished by what I had been forced to 
overhear. I remembered that he had never once 
spoken my name. That he had said these were things 
that he would be glad to get out of his mind forever. 
No, he had not forgotten, his was not a nature to for- 
get ; but he would be glad to forget if it were possible. 
The memory of me was only fraught with torture to 
him. The wound had been too deep to heal ; it might 
be silent for long intervals, but it broke out now and 
then, with undiminished pain. Through me his life 
was desolate ; he strove against me as against an enemy. 
He would be glad to forget forever what he had so far 
only succeeded in forgetting fitfully. Ah ! bitter hear- 
ing ! Then his words had planted another thorn. 
Naomi Emlyn, a young queen, now in her fresh 
womanhood and perfect beauty, tenderly remembered 


382 


CONSTRAINED TO HEAR. 


as “his only friend,” was to be sought out. She 
Bui'elj would be “ an interest ” to him. To meet her, 
he was going more into the world. For my own peace 
of mind, I should better not have done that little piece 
of eavesdropping. 

And again, had this evening’s occurrence put me 
further from or nearer to him ? It had cut both ways. 
It had put me further from him than even all these 
years had put me. It had made it impossible for me 
to hope for any recognition. His happiness seemed to 
depend upon oblivion, and if I had a duty, it was to 
save him from a re-opening of the wound, and to 
further his attempt to find in something new an inter- 
est. But the sight of him, the nearness to him, the 
sound, close to my ears, of his unapproachably sympa- 
thetic voice — what had they not wrought upon my 
heart ! I had thought the years liad disciplined me. 
I had fancied that all was dead within me but the hope 
of Heaven and the thought of duty. What would I 
not have given to have recalled the life of peace that 
his coming had spoiled ! It would take years to bring 
it back again. Hever, it seemed to me, while I knew 
he lived, could I be at rest again without him. But 
lately, it would have seemed to me that to know he 
was living would have been happiness enough ; living, 
if even lying on a narrow cot in some ward of Charity 
Hospital. How perverse and ungrateful I had become. 
He was living, he was at the height of fame and pros- 
perity, he was not ill satisfied with life and its results ; 
and I was passionately wretched, because I could not 
claim a part in his life any longer, because the door 
was shut between us, and I could not touch his hand or 
meet his eye. 


CHAPTEE XXIX. 


SOME DEAD FLOWERS. 

No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet. 

But pale, and hard, and dry as stubble- wheat.” 

E. B, Browning. 

“ Dear as remembered kisses after death. 

And sweet as those, by hopeless fancy feigned, 

On lips that are for others ; deep as love — 

Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; 

O Death in life I the days that are no more.” 

Tennyson. 

I KEPT my resolution for a few days. I only saw 
him from the window, going in and out. I walked 
much. I tried to keep myself from thought by busy 
occupation. Sophia had nothing to complain of in my 
devotion to her and her duties. I even found a day, 
once in the week, to go back to the hospital. But, all 
I succeeded in doing was wearing myself out, and 
leaving thought still master. 

Mr. Conyngham’s cards and visitors increased ; his 
goings out increased. Several days in the week Buttons 
brouglit down word he would not dine at home. On 
many nights I heard him come in after midnight. 
Had he found Naomi Emlyn yet? The papers were 
daily chronicling his doings. He was lecturing very 
often ; sometimes he was gone for a day or two, lectur- 
ing in other cities. It was my constant hope the corner 

[^ 83 ] 


384 


SOME DEAD FLOWERS. 


rooms would be rented. I even sent an advertisement 
of them to the papers. Many people came to see them, 
but they were not taken — now for this reason, now for 
that. I longed to see that temptation closed upon me ; 
but, while those rooms were vacant, I was not sure of 
myself — I might be tempted to go again into the room 
which I had declared to myself I never again would 
enter. 

About this time there appeared in all the papers an 
advertisement addressed to Sophia Atkinson. I took 
pains that it should never meet her eye. The servants 
did not read ; but the lodgers — one or two of them — 
noticed the advertisement, and sent it to Miss Atkin- 
son, with their compliments. I was fortunate enough 
to intercept the papers, and take them to my own room 
first ; and so Mr. Hardinge’s efforts for his client were 
not crowned with much success. His detective, also, I 
had the good fortune to see in the hall, as I came in 
one day, and to throw completely off the track. I con- 
vinced him that this Atkinson was a very different one 
from the Atkinson whom he pursued. By a fortunate 
mistake, her residence, in the directory, was put down 
as the number of the house on the street, and not the 
house on the avenue. It was also put in, S. Atkinson, 
and not Sophia Atkinson. So Sophia nursed her rheu- 
matism up-stairs, and Mr. Conyngham, unsuspected, 
kept his rooms below. 

One day, it was a rainy, in-door day, I had had less 
possibility of occupation than usual, and had taken out 
my water colors. There was an unfinished sketch of a 
bit of the South Berwick beach, having for background 
an opening in the dunes, and a distant glimpse of green 
meadows and purple hills beyond. I finished it ; it 


SOME DEAD FLOWEE8. 


385 


was a characteristic view ; it seemed to me no one 
could claim it for any other spot on earth. A sudden 
impulse seized me. I scorned my resolution ; the corner 
parlor door stood open as I went up-stairs to my room, 
with the picture in my hand. I pushed through tlie 
door ; in another minute I was in the forbidden rooms. 

I had forgotten to say, that over the corner where 
stood a little table with cigars and ash-stand, I had 
hung an engraving, and under it, a small and insignifi- 
cant photograph of some favorite picture, I can’t rec- 
ollect at this moment what. These two had hung low, 
and I had, in other unconventional places, put one or 
two more. The walls were rather dark, and they had a 
good effect. 

I hastily took out the photograph from its frame, 
and put in its place the little water color I had just 
finished, and hung it exactly as it had hung before. 
Why did I do it ? It would be hard to say. It might 
never attract his notice. It might even be that he 
would look at it and never sec a suggestion of the spot 
I meant. I did it, perhaps from an impulse to escape 
from the resolution that I had made to hide myself 
from him, to defend him from the past. It was a 
perverse and passionate resistance of my own decree. 

When I had put the little picture in its place and 
given a glance back at it, I burned out, to escape from 
reason and from self-reproach. As I passed his dress- 
ing-table, I saw lying on it, beside a crumpled handker- 
chief and a pair of gloves, a couple of dinner cards and 
some withered flowers. It was evidently the contents 
of his pocket, emptied out the night before when he 
came home. The chambermaid had left them, not 
knowing where to put them. I glanced down at the 


386 


SOME DEAD FLOWERS. 


cards. They were exquisitely painted. On one was 
written, Miss Einlyn ; on the other, Mr. Conyngham. 
My heart gave a throb. Then he had met her ; they 
had been side by side for hours, last night at dinner. I 
would take my little sketch away : South Berwick v/as 
recalled enough. But no; it should stay. I would go 
away, and never come back into this cruel room again. 

But what were my resolutions worth? Not long 
after, it was a wild and stormy evening, I was sitting 
in my window, looking out; the light within was turned 
low. The people struggled past around the corner 
where the wind met them full, with heads bent down, 
and umbrellas bent and twisted. I liked the fierce beat 
of the rain upon the pane. I liked anything better 
than soft moonlight and calm days of sunshine ; I was 
too restless to like things that were at rest. While I 
looked out, leaning my forehead against the glass, I 
saw Mr. Conyngham come out and get into a carriage. 
A man held the umbrella over him and opened the 
carriage door ; then got up beside the driver on the 
box, and they drove away. I don’t know what tliere , 
was in the sight of his departure that gave me such 
bitter thoughts. It was in such contrast to my loneli- 
ness, to my misery. I thought of the gay scene to 
which he went, the adulation with which he would be 
met. I remembered Naomi would be there, no doubt. 
Naomi, whose eyes he thought he must remember, who 
had been “ his only friend ! ” The world was at his 
feet, if he wanted it ; love, perhaps, and a life-long- 
devotion was stretching out its hands to him to draw 
him from his life of cold seclusion ; and I, ah, what 
lay before me in the dreary years to come ? 

1 turned from the window, and shut out the storm 


SOME DEAD FLOWERS. 


887 


and darkness. I opened mj portfolio, and sat down 
beside the lamp. From a folded sheet of paper there 
fell out a bunch of flowers that had been pressed, stems 
and roots and leaves and all. Sudden tears sprang to 
my eyes at the sight of them. They were little pink 
flowers that I had gathered at South Berwick the year 
before, when I had spent a day there, in the latter part 
of August. The country people call them “ meadow- 
pinks,” I don’t know what their correct name is. They 
are a little star-shaped flower, of a soft yellowish pink, 
with brown and yellow centers. They grow in salt-mead- 
ows, and no doubt are very common, but I had never seen 
them anywhere but at South Berwick, and they were en- 
tirely associated with the place. In masses, they are very 
beautiful, and they were often the ornament of my little 
tea-table at the cottage ; in a low glass dish, against the 
dark mahogany, they were lovely. I was very apt to wear 
them in my dress. E’ed and Macnally never crossed the 
meadows without bringing me a bunch. They did not 
grow very near us, a mile or more away. It was quite 
a circumstance to get them, but I was seldom without 
them. When we were driving, it was an excuse to 
prolong the drive, to go and get some. I knew Mac- 
nally had often walked miles out of his way, to bring a 
handful to me. I could see him now, standing in the 
door, in his blue-flannel clothes, with his game-bag over 
his shoulder, his cap in one hand, the flowers in the 
other, his face eager, bright, and yet almost shy, if I 
were sitting alone in the parlor, and there was no child 
to pick up in his arms and make a turmoil over. 

They were my flowers, par excellence y every one 
got them for me, brought them to me, associated them 
with the thought of me. These I held in ray hand were 


388 


SOME DEAD FLOWERS. 


excellently pressed, they had retained their color and 
their shape, even to the roots and leaves. I put them 
aside, and tried to recall no more pictures that they sug- 
gested to me. It was late when I went up to bed : I 
had my portfolio in my hand. The corner door was 
open. Why could they not keep that door shut ? I re- 
solved to lock it and to carry the key up to Sophia. In 
the meantime, I pushed it open, and went in. It was 
only eleven o’clock, there was plenty of time before he 
should come back. A sudden impulse seized me, and 
I went stealthily in. There was light enough in his 
parlor for me to make my way across the bed-room. 
The lamp was turned low, the fire gave out rather a 
fitful glow. His chair was by the table, standing as he 
had left it ; a half burned cigar lay on the ash-stand on 
the table, a book half-closed was beside it. A note, 
tom open carelessly, lay on it. The envelope had the 
initials H. E. on it; the address was in a woman’s 
hand. 

I took a handful of my fiowers, and shut them in 
the book; put another lump of coal on the fire, 
smoothed out the table-cover, which was drawn awry, 
straightened the mg, and put the footstool before the 
chair, then went away. 

The next morning, about nine o’clock, I had to go 
into the other house, to ease Sophia’s mind about the 
condition of a window-shade in the upper hall. It had 
been reported to her in a damaged condition. She 
could not sleep for thinking of it. She would not take 
the word of the servants about it ; I must go and look 
at it myself. I rarely went into this hall ; it gave me 
rather an uncomfortable feeling, and I dreaded meeting 
any of the lodgers, who always eyed me with more in- 


SOME DEAD FLOWERS. 


389 


terest than I liked. As I got near Mr. Conyngham’s 
door I caught sight of some one standing in it, and the 
iigure of Buttons in front, again, ot that. All that I 
could do was to step back behind a wardrobe, which 
hid me from sight in an angle of the hall. Buttons 
was a little waif whom I had found in the children’s 
ward at the hospital several years before. He was at 
least fifteen now, but he looked barely nine. He had 
a tiny, well-made figure, and a tiny, acute face. I had 
persuaded Sophia to get him a suit of brown clothes 
with brass buttons, and to take him into her service. 
It was a very good investment ; he never outgrew his 
clothes. He was quite useful, and a distinguished or- 
nament to the establishment. The apron that he wore 
when about his menial work was so absurdly little, it 
looked as if it had been made of a pocket handkerchief, 
but it came below his Imees. His intelligence seemed 
preternatural because of his size. His accent was South- 
ern, with fiowers of Hibernian eloquence engrafted. 

Mr. Conyngham was saying to him : 

“ I want to see the — person who keeps the house. 
Will you go and say so to her ?” 

“ She’s ill, sah, can’t see nobody ; much oblige, sah ; 
very sorry, sah.” 

‘‘ I am sorry, too. You are sure it is impossible ?” 

“ Sartain sure, sah. She ain’t see nobody for this 
month and more. She’s quite an old lady, she is, and 
she’s got the rheumatism very bad.” 

“ What’s her name ? I think I have forgotten it.” 

“ Her name, sah 1 Missatkins, sah.” 

“ Sacketts ? Miss Sacketts, did you say 

“ Yessah, Missacketts, sah. That’s what her name is.” 

Buttons made dreadful work with people’s names ; 


390 


SOME DEAD FLOWERS. 


he made no account of a syllable or two, more or less ; 
it had been quite a hindrance to liis usefulness as a 
hall boy, but I blessed him for it now, and remembered 
with relief that he habitually deprived Sophia of the 
last two letters of her name. 

“ Sacketts, Miss Sacketts 

“ Yes, sah.” 

“ And who else lives in this house ? Can you tell 
me any of their names V’ 

“ In this house, sah V 

‘‘ Yes, in this house. On the floor below, who is 
there 

“There’s an old lady, sah; she have a son, sah. 
They very nice people, sah, they have live with Miss 
Sacketts a long while.” 

“ And here, on this floor ?” 

“ There be two ladies, sah ; they have the back 
rooms, like you have the front. They be maiding 
ladies ; they come last year, they did.” 

“Are they — young ladies, at all, either of them ?” 

“ Oh, no, sah,” and Buttons grinned a litth.. 
“ They be quite maiding ; they be settled, both o’ ’em. 
And the floor above, there’s Miss Graham, sah. She’s 
got some children, sah. Miss Graham she’s a very 
little lady ; she’s got black eyes and speaks up sharp. 
She makes ’em all stand round, she does. Mr. Gra- 
ham’s very nice gentleman. He don’t say much ’bout 
things no way. And up-stairs o’ all that, tliere’s where 
the help sleeps, and where Miss Sacketts has her room, 
and one gentleman lodger who don’t take no meals. I 
do his blackin’ for him, though, and he pays me very 
handsome.” 

“ And there’s no one else in this house ?” 


SOME DEAD FLOWERS. 391 

‘•'Nobody, sab, in this house, but what I ha’ been 
tellin’ you.” 

“Very well; that is all.” And Mr. CcnyDgham 
turned back into his room and shut his door. 

Christmas was approaching ; for two days before it, 
he was away. On Christmas eve I broke my resolution 
again, and made his room bright with some holly, a 
spray or two of mistletoe and a glass of fresh flowers. 
I did not know that he would come back, but late that 
night he came. On Christmas Day he went out early 
to church ; he crossed the street just as I was coming 
out the door, when there was scarcely light enough to 
see. For the rest of the day, he was shut up in his 
room. He had a great many calls from gentlemen, who 
took advantage of a leisure day, but he did not see any 
of them. There was no lack of flowers and daintily- 
done-up packages ; Buttons was a busy man that day. 
I heard Mary say to one of tlie other servants, that his 
meals had come down almost untouched. In the even- 
ing, I heard him walking up and down his rooms, up 
and down, for an hour together. It had been a raw, 
cheerless day, and the evening had closed in with mist 
and rain. The wound had begun to smart again. Who 
does not pity the homeless man, to whom these days ot 
festival are torture? The world cannot supply the 
want. Nothing but little arms around his neck, a tender 
hand in his, the blaze of his own hearth, can make the 
earthly side of Christmas fair to him. If all are sorry 
for such a man, how much more the one whose hand 
has dealt the wound ; the one whose misery it has been 
to make his hfe a blank. I was glad when Chrismas 
Day was over, with the thoughts it brought to him and 
me. 


CHAPTER XXX, 


CAP AND APEON. 

* The thirst that from the soul rise^ 

Doth ask a drink divine; 

But might I of love’s nectar sip, 

I would not change for thine.” 

Bm Jonson, 

T WO weeks after Christmas Day, he went away 
again (there was nothing else that marked the 
lapse of time to me that winter). The time of his re- 
turn was indefinite. He left word that his letters were 
to he kept for him, that his agent would call from time 
to time to get them, and to make the payment for his 
rooms, which were to be kept in order, ready for him 
to occupy at any time. From the papers, I learned he 
was in Canada. I suppose all the world learned it from 
that or other sources. There was a cessation of cards 
and invitations. Buttons had slack times, and but for 
the inflation of his mind, might have returned to the 
knives and boots. But having been Mr. Conyngham’s 
, gentleman, he refused to decline upon that occupation, 
and became a little pert and troublesome in his idleness. 

Sophia was improving slowly ; if the foggy, moist, 
January weather had not been against her, the doctor 
thought she might have been down-stairs by this time. 
Several weeks passed — three, I think it was. The 
house seemed silent and dead to me. I went about my 
[392J 


OAP AND APRON. 


393 


daily occupations with a dullness of heart that fore- 
boded ill for the future. I had begun to think that he 
would not come back ; or that his coming would be 
but the prelude to his going away entirely. 

The day had been wet and foggy, but, towards 
evening, it had turned cold ; and now, at half -past ten 
o’clock, it was snowing thickly. I sat reading by my 
lamp. I had heard the bell of the other house ring 
sliai’ply several times ; no one answered it ; it was now 
quarter to eleven. I looked out. The lights in . both 
halls were turned low ; the servants had evidently gone 
to bed ; the house was supposed to be shut up. Who- 
ever it was, tired of ringing at that bell, came around 
to the door of our house, and rang sharply there. I 
could not let any one stay outside on such a night ; I 
opened the door. It was a snow-powdered boy, with a 
telegram addressed to “Miss Sacketts.” I paid the 
charge, and hurried to the lamp with it. It read : 

“ Train due at ten o’clock. Have supper ready for 
me. L. B. M. Conyngham.” 

It was already, as I have said, quarter to eleven. I 
hurried to the kitchen, where I had not been half a 
dozen times before. There I found the cook asleep 
before a good hot fire. The laundress had been dozing 
in a corner, but was just rubbing her eyes and getting 
up to go to bed. “ Where were all the other servants 
buttons had gone to bed with a toothache hours ago. 
Mary and the chambermaid had gone out to a party, to 
be away all night. Mrs. Graham’s waiter never staid 
after nine o’clock, unless she had company, and needed 
him ; and the two women who attended to the other 
tables also lodged abroad. What was to be done'i^ 
The laundress was a starched, middle-aged creature, 


394 


CAP AND APRON. 


whom I had never liked. She did her own work well, 
but had never been known to assist in that of any other 
servant. She was feeling particularly bitter about the 
party, too, to which the women were gone, whose duty 
she was asked to undertake. 

I soon found it was useless to urge her to arrange the 
room, or wait upon the table. She flatly refused to do 
it, and seemed disposed to be impertinent. The cook, 
who was a vast, good-natured negress, bestirred herself 
in a slow way, and began to prepare some supper. It 
was not possible to ask her to carry it up ; it was doubt- 
ful whether she could get up the basement stairs ; she 
never had attempted it since she originally came down 
them, and she had increased in bulk considerably. Her 
few outings were made by way of the area-door, which 
was double, and which was always opened on both 
hinges to let her pass. She lodged in some obscure, un- 
explored portion of the basement, cooked d merveille^ 
and was always good-natured, when the demand upon 
her was not unreasonable. She tried to bring the laun- 
dress to reason ; the best that she could be made to con- 
sent to do, with the persuasion of both of us, was to 
open the door for the gentleman, when he rang, and to 
carry the tray of supper up, and set it on the table that 
stood outside his door. 

“ Oh, well,” I said, “ that will do ; he can take it in 
himself, no doubt.” 

My own resolution was taken. I hurried up-stairs 
to the linen closet, where I knew Mary’s fresh caps and 
aprons were, took one of each, as well as linen for the 
table, and let myself, by the closet door, into Mac- 
ually’s room. 

The rooms felt chill and damp. I Ht the fire, the 


CAP AND APEON. 


395 


lamp ; turned the gas low above the dressing-table. 
Tliere were fresh towels and fresh water on the wash- 
stand ; there was not much dust. In a moment the 
parlor seemed transformed by the glow of the lire and 
by its ready warmth. I laid the table with shaking 
hands. I knew where the china and glass were kept, 
in the closet outside the door. There was a screen that 
Sophia had devised, that was put before this closet, and 
the table where the tray was to be put. Even if the 
house were not asleep, this would make it safe for me ; 
I could move in and out of the room without observa- 
tion, and the house was so still, owing to the lateness of 
the hour, and the snow-paved streets, I could hear the 
laundress three stories off, if she repented and came 
up the stairs. 

1 arranged the table with glass and silver and some 
liowers, to have a very nice effect. Then I moved the 
lamp to a side-table, and drew down the gas, and put a 
heavy shade upon it. There was also a shade upon the 
lamp. Except for the glow of the fire, there was no 
light shed about the room ; that thrown by the shaded 
gas upon the table did not extend beyond the circle of 
the cloth. I moved the chair up by the fire, arranged 
the footstool before it, put on the side-table below the 
lamp, the cloisonne bowl of notes and cards that had 
accumulated since he had been away, and placed beside 
his plate three or four letters that had come that day. 

It was now half-past eleven. There came a ring at 
the door. I grew pale with fear that the laundress had 
gi own stubborn and might not go, but after a moment, 
I heard her mount the stairs and go slowly to the door. 
Then I heard Macnally’s quick step on the stairs, and 
her heavy one going down the basement stairs, and a 


396 


CAP AISTD APRON. 


bang of the basement door. 1 pushed open the door a 
little, that he might get a gleam of welcome from it, 
and withdrew into the closet just as he entered the 
room. He said “ Ah !” in a tone of satisfaction, as he 
glanced around the bright and home-like place. He 
shook the snow from his coat, put down his bag inside 
the bed-room door, took off his ulster, and then re- 
turned and walked round the room, and looked about 
it as a man does who has made a home of a place, and 
is glad to get back to it once more. He glanced at the 
notes and cards with little interest, took up the letters, 
laid back two, and read one. 

In the meantime, I had gone into the corner room, 
and was putting on my cap and apron by the glass. 
Mary was slender, and about my height. My dress was 
black and unobtrusive. I felt reassured as I glanced at 
myself in the dim light. Then I went back softly and 
listened. Macnally was in the parlor ; so, with a beat- 
ing heart, I stepped out into the bedroom. But the 
peril was so great, I resolved the heart-beats should be 
regulated, and they were. He had left the parlor door 
open when he entered from the hall. It was important 
that this door should be shut, or the laundress would 
see the preparation of the table, and know I had been 
in the room. I went quietly out into the hall through 
the bedroom door, and shut the parlor door from the 
outside. It was just in time. I heard the heavy-focted 
Hebe coming up the basement stairs, and I returned to 
the shelter of the bedroom door. She put down the 
tray with an ostentatious clatter of the dishes on it, and 
turning, went stolidly down the stairs again. Then I 
came out into the hall, set the screen before the table 


CAP AND APRON. 


89T 


and the* parlor door, opened it, took a covered dish in 
my hand, and went trembling in. 

It rather steadied me to hnd my entrance was not 
at all observed. He had thrown down his letters and 
was walking about the room again. I saw him take up 
the lamp from the side table, and go over to where the 
little water-color sketch of the beach hung, and gaze 
at it long and fixedly. 

By this time I had got the things all upon the table. 
When he put back the lamp, he knocked the shade ofi 
it. As he turned away, I hurriedly replaced it, and 
then stood back in the shadow. I hoped he would see 
that his supper was ready. I had not taken it into 
consideration that I should have to speak. Instead of 
noticing the preparation for his meal, he went to the 
writing-table, brought a portfolio to the light, and sit- 
ting down, not in the chair placed for him at the head 
of the table, but in one he pulled up for himself, hastily 
scratched off a little note, put it in an envelope and 
directed it. Then he got up, pushed back his chair, 
and said, 

“Have this sent for me to-night, will you, if 
possible. Or, if not, the first thing in the morning.” 

He handed it to me without looking at me, but as I 
took it, his eye fell on mo as he turned away. I was 
conscious that he had looked at me, but I had been 
very much in shadow, and my face had been turned 
away. I had been prepared, from what I had heard 
Mary teU Sophia once, that he would not notice me. 
She said he was a very nice gentleman, but he wasn’t 
like most other gentlemen ; he didn’t notice servants 
when they waited on him, and though always civil, 
never talked to them. Mary was very pretty, and had., 


398 


CAP AND APRON. 


no doubt, been used to a different line of conduct in 
other nice gentlemen whom she had waited on. 

Instead of sitting down at the table or noticing that 
it was ready, he threw himself into the chair before the 
fire, and sat gazing at it while the minutes passed. I 
moved about the room, or stood back in the shadow, my 
agitation increasing every moment. Presently he said, 
without turning his head, 

‘‘ Will you put another piece of coal on the fire !” 

The fire was sending out a ruddy glow just then. 
The movement brought me right into the heart of the 
light, and into range of his steady gize. But I went 
quickly forward, took the coal from the scuttle, threw 
it hastily on the fire, and drew back again out of the 
light. Still he sat gazing on into the same spot and did 
not move ; then I made a feint of going out into the 
hall and putting another dish on the table, and then I 
said, in a voice that sounded strange and unnatural in 
rny own ears, 

“ Your supper is on the table, sir.” 

He did not look up, but moved back his chair and 
took his seat in tlie one placed for him at the table. 
This one w^as a dining chair, with rather a high back, 
and arms. He leaned back wearily in it. I had gone 
back, and stood behind him. He drew a dish towards 
him, took up the carving knife and fork, cut a bird in 
two and put it on his plate. He took some salt on his 
plate ; he took up a piece of bread. The toast under 
the bird seemed to strike him ; he pulled the dish back 
again and took it upon his plate. He did not have a 
traveller’s appetite, apparently. I was watching keenly, 
and he was playing at eating, trying to like his food, 
and not tempted, now it was before him. I remembered 


CAP AND APRON. 


399 


hearing Mary say to one of the servants that many 
days she took away his dinner, almost as she had carried 
it up to him. I was afraid he was ill. His long jour- 
ney surely should have given him an appetite. The 
sort of solicitude I felt for him, took away my appre- 
hensive feeling about myself. 

“ Will you give me the wine he startled me by 
saying at last. The wine was within easy distance of 
his hand, if he had stretched it out. But I suppose he 
was in the habit of being waited on. He held his wine- 
glass in his hand ; I went around the table, took the 
decanter up and took out the stopper, then came a little 
nearer to him, and lifted it up over the glass to fill it. 
I gave a stealthy glance at his face. He did not look 
up, his eyes were fixed on the glass. The decanter was 
rather a heavy one ; my wrist shook a little. I glanced 
down ; it gave me a sudden terror to see how strong 
the light shone on my hand, and how white it looked. 
I had, too, forgotten to take off my rings ! 

I was on the right side of the table ; with his right 
hand he was holding the glass. I made a little awk- 
ward effort to tip the decanter down, and the wine 
began to gurgle out and fill the glass. 

At this moment, his left hand made a panther-like 
spring, and grasped my wrist. 1 uttered a cry, and let 
the decanter fall upon the table ; and the odor of the 
spilled wine always comes to me as I remember that 
strange scene. He started to his feet : 

“ What does this masquerading mean he said, in a 
hoarse, harsh voice. 

I had put up my other arm before my face, which I 
Sent down and hid completely from him. He caught 
ihe wriflt of this arm (still holding the other in a 


400 


CAP AND APRON. 


fierce grasp), and drew it away from my face, 1 lifted 
my head, and for a moment onr eyes met. 

Then he relaxed his hold upon my wrists, gave a 
sort of gasp, and, staggering back, sank into his chair. 
1 was stunned for a moment ; I put my hand up to my 
temple. Then as I saw the horrible whiteness of his 
look, and the closing of his eyes, I gave a cry, and 
threw myself down on my knees beside his chair. 

“ What have I done,” I cried, “ what have I done 
and I caught his hand and tried to warm it. He moved 
his hand a little and opened his eyes and tried to speak. 

“ Oh, forgive me,” I cried passionately. “ I never 
meant you should have seen me. I would have died 
first. I thought you would not know me. It is too 
cruel — I have done so wrong. Don’t look at me if it 
hurts you so !” and I put my head down upon the arm 
of his chair, for his eyes only rested upon me for a mo- 
ment, and then closed again as if the sight were insup- 
portable. 

“ It seems cruel,” I went on incoherently, with tears, 
looking up at him ; “ it seems cruel, but it really was a 
sacrifice — and I did not think that you would know 
me. All winter I have kept out of your sight, and I 
never, never meant you should have had the pain of 
seeing me. I had vowed to myseK you never should. 
It will be ungenerous if you let it make you ill, when I 
did not mean to do you any wrong, when I only did it 
for a kindness. I was so sorry for your lonely coming 
home. I — I — have been so sorry for you always,” and 
I began to sob. 

He made a fierce effort to overcome the faintness, 
and tried to speak. “ I shall be better — in a moment,” 
he said. 


CAP AND APKON. 


401 


I'l I started to my feet and hastily poured a glass of 
j wine, and held it out to him. He drank it with an 
j effort, and as he gave the glass back to me, our eyes 
met, and the thought of the last time when I had stood 
before liim, while he drank off the wine I had poured out 
for him, flashed through both our minds. 

“ That was a long while ago,” he said, leaning his 
head on the back of the chair, and looking up at me. 

“ Yes,” I said, uneasily. “ But you needn’t think 
of that time, if it makes you ill. You needn’t think of 
anything — you can be as if I hadn’t had the misery to 
come and trouble you again. I will go away, and you 
can forget it all, and be like other happy people. You 
have everything, you ought to be happy. Bemember, 
I meant it always — it ought to make you forgive me — 
I never meant to bring it all up again. Give me the 
credit of that, at least. I don’t think I have been self- 
ish.” 

“You forget,” he said, brokenly, “ I don’t know — 
anything — ” 

I was standing before him ; I saw his eye rest on 
my apron ; I thought I saw a look of disgust pass over 
his features. Of course it was not, only the physical 
pain that his recurring faintness gave. But, stung by 
my mistaken thought, I tore the cap and apron off, and 
threw them on the floor. 

“ 1 am not a. servant,” I said, with a little bitter 
laugh. “ I only put those things on to come and wait 
on you because there was no other way that you should 
have anything to eat to-night, when you came home. 
You don’t know about it — but this is Sophia’s house. 
Sophia had money left her ; she is a rich woman now, 
for a person of her class. She has had these two houses 


402 


CAP AND APEON. 


for a good many years, and I have always Ihed with 
her, and had her prettiest rooms, and been quite in 
luxury. She doesn’t know you’re here — she’s ill — I’ve 
kept it from her, that you might have peace. I’ve 
hoped you might feel a little as if it were a home. 1 
knew it couldn’t last — it was not selfish in me — what 
were a few weeks or less ? I know you think it was 
unwomanly in me to come into your rooms. — Yes, per- 
haps it was. I never meant to do it. I always felt 
ashamed. I thought you’d never know, and the rooms 
looked so dreary the first time that I saw them. — It 
was all a sudden impulse to-night ; the servants were 
all gone to bed but one ; she brought your supper up 
and left it at the door. I thought you’d never know 
me, I kept the room so dim. It was your fault ; you 
should not have caught my hand. You never need 
have known me if you had not.” 

“You don’t understand,” he said, with effort, press- 
ing his hand against his heart ; “ if I could — ” 

“ I do understand,” I cried, with fresh tears. “ I un- 
derstand it all. I have made you ill. I have always 
done you harm. I wish I had been dead before I came 
up here to-night.” 

He stretched out his hand to me ; I had gone back 
a few steps from him, but I came nearer again, and 
ook his hand. 

“ It’s very hard for me to see you look so iU,” I 
aid, falteringly. “Can’t I get you anything? Isn’t 
here any medicine you take ?” 

He shook his head, and lay back in his chair, hold- 
ing my hand in a faint grasp, and looking at me with 
deep, unmoving eyes. 

I grew restless under his steady gaze. His recog- 


CAP AND APRON. 


403 


nition of me had been all pain, all anguish ; he had yet 
to utter the first word, give the first glance, of pleasure. 
I thought of all my doubts, of all that had pained me, as 
I had watched his goings out and comings in. I thought 
of Naomi Emlyn. I knew that the note, even now in 
the pocket of my apron, was addressed to her. I had 
indeed been an unwelcome apparition. It was his deep 
and unforgetting nature made him so strongly moved 
at sight of me. Perhaps he had only recently made up 
his mind to believe me dead, and to fill my place, and 
this was the moment 1 had chosen to come back. It 
was torture to have all these thoughts, and stand beside 
him, and feel his faint fingers clasp my hand. 

“ It agitates you to see me,” I said, constrainedly, 
and I loosened my hand, and drew a little back. It 
wasn’t a difficult matter to do ; I couldn’t see that he 
made any effort to hold it longer. A swift red over- 
spread my face, as I turned a little from him. 

At this moment I heard outside the door, steps and 
voices and the bumping of a trunk against the floor, then 
a loud rap. I sprang forward, caught up the cap and 
apron from the floor, and disappeared from sight. I 
heard the door open as I hurried through the closet. 
The expressman and the laundress had not had the 
good manners to wait till they were told to enter. It 
was well for me that I had heard ttem when I did. 


CHAPTEE XXXL 


A WOMAN, NOT A SHADE. 

“ Kiss me for my love! 

Pay me for my pain ! 

Come 1 and murmur in my ear, 

How thou lov’st again 1” 

Barry Cornwall. 

I T was about eleven o’clock the next morning that 
one of the servants brought me a note from Mr. 
Conjngham. Of course, I had known he would come, 
and was prepared for it. I read it hastily over, and 
told the servant to say I would be glad to see him. 

Yes, I was quite prepared to see him. I was 
dressed — not in a cap and apron. There are some 
scenes you can’t go through in a short dress, and mine 
was long. It was only a black cashmere, but it didn’t 
look like Mary’s. I had a bunch of violets at my 
waist; I had spent an hour about my hair, which 
hadn’t any gray in it at all, but was as soft and brown 
as ever. 

The snow was falling outside thickly before the 
windows — great, soft flakes, which darkened the air. 
The hangings were drawn back a little ; the room had 
a great many flowers about it ; there was a warm glow 
from the Are on the hearth. The room was large, but 
the ceiling was not high. It looked fllled and warm 
and mellow with rich tints. I pushed a chair I liked 
[404] 


A WOMAN, NOT A SHADE. 


405 


between the fire- place and the window, and sat down 
there. I was knitting the pale gray stripe of an afghan, 
and I kept my work in my hand. There was a qnick 
knock at the door. I said, “ Come in,” and Macnully 
entered. I got up, and he came across the room to me, 
and took my hand. He looked pale, but not ill, as he 
had done the night before. I sat down, saying : 

“ You are better, I am sure, to-day 

There was no use ignoring last night, though I should 
have been glad to do it, if I could. If I could only 
have remembered what I had said to him when I threw 
myself down before him on my knees ! It would take 
a very long dress and a very composed manner to 
obliterate that miserable mistake. 

“ I’m afraid,” he said, I gave you some anxiety 
last night. It’s unlucky that I get those attacks when 
I have any sudden — surprise or anything.” 

“ I should think,” I said, looking down at my knit- 
ting, ‘‘ that if you have any trouble of the heart or any- 
thing like that, you ought to be careful and avoid ex- 
citement. Speaking, and all that, isn’t it bad for you ?” 

“ You mean for the excitement of it ? Oh, that’s 
not the sort of thing that hurts one — ,” and he smiled 
a little faintly. 

He did not sit down, but stood leaning against the 
mantel-piece, just beside me. He had an affinity for man- 
tel-pieces. I seemed al ways to remember him standing by 
a mantel-piece and looking at the fire. But he was not 
looking at the fire now, he was looking at me, I could 
feel that. I tried to think of something to say. I had 
meant to be so calm, so reassuring to him. I had meant 
to make it so easy for him to explain everything to me. 
But here I was, changing from red to white, and my 


403 


A WOMAN. NOT A SHADE. 


breath coming in such a suffocating way. He did not 
speak. It seemed to me he might have spoken, he 
might have helped me ; one ought to feel sorry for a 
woman. I went on with my work. What should I 
have done without it? At last I remembered some- 
thing to say: it was the thing that gave me most con- 
trol. 

“ Oh, that letter. I hope it won’t make any differ- 
ence. I just found it this morning in the pocket of — 
in my pocket. Here it is,” and I took it out and gave 
it to him. He took it indifferently. 

“ It’s just as well,” he said. “ It doesn’t make any 
difference now.” 

Ho, of course not. I could see that. There would 
have to be such a different story now, it was just as 
well it didn’t go. But I must help him about that. 
How should I begin ? 

I pulled a long thread of the worsted off the ball, 
to knit more freely. It slipped through my fingers as 
I laid it in my lap, and rolled away across the floor. 
He did not notice it or pick it up. I did not dare to 
go after it myseK, I was so afraid of losing the little 
self-control of manner that I had. All this time I did 
not look at him, but I felt he leaned a little towards me. 
In a moment he laid his hand upon my wrist, and held 
it firmly. 

“ Put down your work,” he said, in a low voice, 
“ and look at me. Have we nothing to say to each 
other, after all these years?” 

I drew my hand away. ‘‘ I hope you will forget 
last night,” I said. 

“Why should I forget it?” he asked. 

“ There were many things to — to — make me — You 


A WOMAN, NOT A SHADE. 


407 


must remember a woman will do a great deal from 
compassion. I shall always feel I owe you reparation — 
but that doesn’t mean — ” 

He had released my hand, and stood in his former 
attitude, and did not attempt to say a word. It was 
insupportable this silence, and his eyes upon me. 

“ That shade,” I said confusedly, “ I want it down. 
The light hurts nxy eyes.” 

He did not notice what I said ; I don’t think he heard 
me. I got up uneasily, to go and pull it down myself. 
As I stood up, I turned a little towards him ; 1 glanced 
into his face ; I met liis eyes, full of an agony of love 
and disappointment. 

“ Ah,” I cried, you do care ! Why could you not 
say that you — were — glad ?” Then, with a sudden pas- 
sion, I flung myself into his arms with sobs. ‘‘ I will 
not live any longer if you go away again. I have borne 
all I can bear. I have died a hundred deaths. You 
may kill me if you go away again. I will not — will not 
— live to suft’er any more alone.” 

* * * Why could he not say that he was glad ? 

Ah, “ glad ” does not come in a moment, after such 
long-dying deaths. I think he held me in his arms with 
more of agony than joy at first. The pain had been so 
deep-branded, a sudden bliss could not obliterate it. 

* * * « Make me glad — make me believe in it,” 

he said, faint again, lying back in a deep chair, and hold- 
ing out his hand to me. Then I knelt beside him, and 
held his hand against my lips, my cheek. 

“ If I could only blot it out,” I said ; “ if you only 
could forget — ” 

“ I cannot,” he said ; “ I cannot forget the pain or 
anything. It is my misery that I c5annot.” 


408 


A woman, not a shade. 


* * * That afternoon, we were still sitting in 
the low, pretty parlor. The streets were all muffled with 
the snow, which was falling yet in soft clouds before the 
windows. The street lamps were just being lighted ; 
upon the hearth the fire was making a deep glow. 

“ I did not think,” he said, “ you would have looked 
so young and well. I am trying to understand it. I am 
afraid you have been happy.” 

“ Ah ! that is just what has tormented me, as I have 
watched you going past these windows. There never 
was any drag or dullness about the way you walked.” 

“ I acknowledge I have liked my work. There is 
a satisfaction in being able to do things.” 

“ And being praised for it.” 

“ iTo, I never cared a straw about that. It’s the 
work itself that pays you : the praise gives you a feeling 
of dissatisfaction. That’s about books, I mean. Oh, of 
course, when you’re face to face with people, and speak- 
ing to them, there’s a fascination in finding that you 
have the power to move them. Yes, I’ve liked that. 
I’m Irishman enough to be infiammable.” 

“ Ah ! well, I didn’t blame you for not looking dull 
or weary when you went past the windows. I tried to teU 
myself I was very glad about it. But for all that, it’s 
been pretty hard these two months. It has been like 
being shut into a dungeon without light or air, and 
knowing that you were in a crowd of people dancing and 
making merry overhead.” 

“ Ah I save the mark ! Such making merry ! You 
needn’t have been afraid. At home I could not bring 
myself to endure it ever, I felt I was such an alien. 
Here I had an incentive to going in society. I had 


A WOMAN, NOT A SHADfl. 


409 


sometimes a fancy that you might have drifted into that 
sort of life.” 

“I!” 

“ I felt you might, if you were living, have come 
imder the eye of some one — like Boughton. This is 
not a reproach — it seemed to me you might have mar- 
ried. 1 always thought of you as passive and passion- 
less. I couldn’t hope if you were living, your loveliness 
could be hidden. Somebody would see you and want 
you ; there was nothing now. Why not — it was all 
equal. This was only one of the thousand fancies that 
I’ve had ; but it gave a little life to the dreary crowds 
and crushes of this — forgive me — dreary, crushing city.” 

“ And you looked for me there 

“Yes, and then for some one who could give 
me news of you. I heard Naomi Emlyn was here, and 
I found her out. She could not tell me much, as you 
know. She will be so glad. I feel as if it were selfish 
not to have got her word to-day. She is such a beauti- 
ful young creature. The yellow-brown hair, and the 
eyes and the sentiment have all deepened ; one rarely 
sees a woman so attractive.” 

I had loosened my hand from his. 

“You will let me bring her here to-morrow?” 

“ I — I don’t receive visits. It would derange my 
plans a little. One must have a rule, and keep to it, 
you know.” 

“ But Naomi ! whom you always loved so much. I 
thought it would be such a pleasure to you.” 

“ Oh, not particularly a pleasure to me. She hag 
outgrown the affection I had for her. I should have 
to make up a new one to fit her now. I haven’t seen 
her since she became this beautifrl young creature. 


410 


A WOMAN, NOT A SHADE. 


The last time I saw lier she was rather a tomboy, and 
had to be sent away to wash her hands before she came 
to dinner. She also used to bother me with questions. 
I used to think her sentiment was a great nuisance ; if it’s 
deepened any, I should like to give it a wide bertli.” 

“You’re not,” he said, stooping down and looking 
in my face, “ you’re not, by chance, a trifle jealous of 
our pretty Kaomi?” 

“ You’re not,” I said, “ by chance, a trifle jealous of 
that anonymous gentleman, married to the passive and 
passionless woman you described ?” 

“I? oh, I wasn’t jealous of him. I never have 
been jealous in my life.” 

“Well, then, no more have I.” 

“ Ah,” he cried, turning my face so that the fire- 
light shone on it, “ now I begin to believe it is all real., 
You are a woman and not a shade. I owe Naomi 
thanks for that ! Did I tell you ? She’s to be mar- 
ried after Lent. I wrote only a few days ago to Lon- 
don for a wedding present for her. I don’t believe 
you can fancy what it is to be.” 

“ I don’t want to fancy,” I said, getting my face 
out of the light. “ I wish you would stop talking of 
her.” 

Horrid as it is to be jealous, I don’t know but it’s 
worse to be ashamed and disgusted with yourself for 
having been jealous without any reason. 

******* * 

“ There is one thing I want to ask you,” he said, 
later on, that evening. “Kemember, it isn’t a re- 
proach.” 

He got up and walked about the room a little. I 
could see it cost him a great effort. “ Those dreadful 


A WOMAIT, NOT A SHADE. 


411 


days — there in the court-room — vhy didn’t you — say a 
word to me ?” 

“ How could I ? You did lot give me a chance ; 
you never even looked at me. Besides — I couldn’t — 
before every one.” 

‘‘ I don’t mean that. I knew you couldn’t speak to 
me. But why didn’t you say something for me to 
understand, when you made your answers ? There was 
not a word ; I didn’t Vnow whether you believed the 
worst of me, or not. I knew you didn’t want me — 
hung — but you can’t understand the horror of that si- 
lence. It seemed to me if you had cared, if I had hdd 
the place that you have given me now, then was the time 
to have been brave and to declare it. I couldn’t see how 
you could have helped it. I — but I ought not to have 
begun to talk about it.” 

“ Yes, you ought,” I cried. “ Thank Heaven you’ve 
given me a chance to tell you. I thought you under- 
stood — I never dreamed you didn’t. It was Mr. Har- 
dinge ; I never said a word but as he led me. I never 
took my eyes away from him. He gave me the cue 
for every word I said. He would not let me be — any- 
thing but cold towards you. It was for the effect upon 
the jury. Don’t you see, my testimony would have 
gone for little if they had believed I — I — cared for you 
that way. I supposed he would have told you ; that 
you’d talk it over with him.” 

“ He wouldn’t be likely to talk to me about youP 

“ Why didn’t you ask him ?” 

“ Ask him ! ah !” 

“ It would have saved you a great deal, if you could 
have overcome that reticence.” 

“ Yes, it would have saved me ten years of torment- 


412 


A WOMAN, NOT A SHADE. 


ing doubts. For if I had been sure — as you were — I 
might have been at rest. There were all my convic- 
tions on one side, my heart’s fixed faith ; and on the 
other, a silence like the grave ; not one word from the 
hour I told you till this day — everything, everything 
against my hope but just my hope itself. Ah, well ! 
It’s past now. We won’t talk about it any more.” 

* * * « Sophia,” I said, sliding down on my knees 
before her bed, and taking hold of her hand “ 1 
haven’t been up here all day, and I’m going to tell 
you the reason. I’ve got something to tell you. Don’t 
take away your hand.” For she had restlessly movevl 
her hand away. My taking it seemed a most unnatural 
proceeding to her. I don’t believe she had ever let me 
hold her hand before since I was a little girl and she 
took me out to walk. “ Sophia, I’ve got to tell you who 
Mr. Conjmgham is. He is Bernard Macnally. I’ve 
known it since the night I went to hear the lecture. 
I didn’t tell you ; there wasn’t any use.” 

She gave a violent start, and turned her eyes upon 
me with a piercing look. 

“ I never meant that he should see me. I had re- 
solved he shouldn’t ever know. But last night he saw 
me, and he knew me in a minute. He isn’t changed — 
'towards me — Sophia. He came to America with just 
that only hope. He has been all these weeks in Canada 
trying to get some clue of where we lived when we 
were there.” 

“ And you ?” Her voice was thick and hoarse. 

“ I never have felt but one way.” 

“ Then go, and leave me to die alone at last.” And 
she turned her face to the wall, white and working 
with emotion. 


A WOMAN, NOT A SHADE 


413 


“ No,” I cried, catching at the hand that she had 
snatched away ; “ no, Sophia, I am not going away to 
leave yon altogether. You shall live here and keep 
your house the same, and we will come back and this 
shall be our home whenever we are in America. Sophia, 
he wants to see you. He wants to thank you for all 
you’ve done for me. He knows I shouldn’t be ahve if 
you hadn’t been so good and faithful to me through my 
trouble.” 

A sort of hiss broke from her lips. 

“ He isn’t — angry about anything. If there was 
anything to be forgiven, he forgives it with his whole 
heart. You were mistaken ; he knows anybody can be 
led into a mistalm. You worCt be hard about this, and 
spoil my happiness to-day ? Think how much you and 
I have gone through together, Sophia. Be as good to 
me in my happy days as you have been to me in my 
wretched ones. You can’t be sorry that this has come 
to me after all my misery. You must Imow he will be 
good to me always. Why can’t you look at me, and 
tell me that it pleases you to hear it ?” 

“ Go away, now,” she said, faintly. “ I don’t feel 
well enough to talk. Wait till to-morrow morning.” 

I had to wait. 


CHAPTEK XXXII. 


A FAIR LAND. 

** Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee 
And breathe within thy shadow a new air, 

I do not think of thee — I am too near thee.” 

E. B. Browning, 

T he next day, Macnally said to me, with simplicity, 
“When shah we go to church and be married? 
To-morrow ?” 

“ Oh, no, not to-morrow.” 

“ Well, the next day ?” 

“ That’s Friday.” 

“ The next?” 

“ I don’t like Saturday. It’s the swell day to get 
married, and for that reason nothing would induce me. 
And, of course, we wouldn’t he married on Sunday, 
since I don’t wear a cap and apron. Xext week we’U 
begin to talk about it.” 

He was an Irish lover, and he began to talk about 
it long before, and I had to make some sort of promise 
for the following Thursday. That week, what happy 
walks we had together. He made me teU him all 
about the way I had spent my days, and take him to all 
the places I had been in the habit of going to, even to 
the streets where the poor people lived whom I had 
visited. I showed him where I went to take my walks, 
a corner where I came to see the sun set, down a street 
[ 414 ] 


A FAIR LAND. 


415 


wliere there were rows of trees, and some sky and a 
little river bit, beyond. My city and his city were very 
different places. There was no danger of meeting any 
body that he knew in mine. We had very free and 
happy hours together in the open air, as well as in the 
pretty, low parlor. For that week, I don’t know what 
became of all his dinner engagements and things like 
that. I am afraid he was a little rude to some of his 
good friends. I am quite sure he never even answered 
any notes. He was an Irish lover, as I have said, and 
he didn’t allow himself to be diverted from the matter 
that he had in hand. There was an engagement to 
lecture, which was a little more serious. I would net 
go to hear him ; nothing would have induced me then. 
The loss of a whole evening was quite out of the 
question to him ; so the lecture engagement was broken, 
not dishonorably, of course, but at a considerable loss 
of money. I can scarcely fancy two people more in- 
different to sacrifices of that. Fortunately, there was a 
good deal to sacrifice with. 

* * I even took him to the hospital. I am sorry to 
say, he didn’t enjoy it at all, but stood as near the door of 
the ward I was in as he could get, with a contraction 
of the brow, and a most uncomfortable expression. He 
had all a man’s dislike of painful sights, and a poet’s 
sensitiveness, I suppose, besides. At first, when I went 
in, I felt guilty, being so happy among the children of 
w"oe ; but in a few minutes, the old love of ministering 
to them came back to me. I almost forgot him, and 
staid a long, long time in my favorite ward, as en- 
grossed and eager as ever. When I came away at last 
X am afraid he saw I had been away from him in every 
sense. The scene was so unspeakably repulsive to 


416 


A FATE LAND. 


him. that the thought of my being part of it was insup- 
portable. He could not bear my dress should touch 
the door as I passed through it. When I stopped for 
a moment in the great, dark, sounding, stone corridor, 
to speak to an orderly whom I knew, going up to a 
surgical ward with some evil-looking instruments and a 
roll of bandaging, he actually took me by the arm, as 
if to force me away. 

“ Can’t I speak to the poor fellow I said ; “ he’s 
one of my most intimate friends.” 

We passed out under the stone archway, into the 
sunlight and fresh air, through ranks of wretched work- 
house women waiting for official orders. A wan woman, 
thinly clad, with a pallid baby in her arms, passed out 
before us. The crutches of a boy, blue and thin, thumped 
on the pavement in front of us. 

“ Poor wretches ! They’re discharged,” I said, hur • 
rying forward to them. 

“ For heaven’s sake, give them this money, and come 
away,” he said. 

I gave them the gift, which was lavish and absurd, 
and then went back and took his arm, and we walked 
down towards the boat, which was to take us to the 
city. The sun was just setting ; the sky was clear and 
rosy ; a strong wind was blowdng across the island. 
Between this stone-built, hard-paved, barren city of 
sorrow, and that city of tumultuous life and luxury to 
which we were going, the icy river was flowing, all lit 
up now by the tints of sunset. 

“You don’t like it. Pm afraid,” I said. 

“ Like it !” he exclaimed, hurrying me towards the 
boat. He held my arm under his as if in a vice. “ And 


A FAm LAND. 


417 


this is the sort of thing you’ve been doing ! Thank 
heaven — ” 

“ Listen,” I said, stopping, and trying to take my 
arm away. “ There’s one thing I might as well say 
now and have done with it. There sha’n’t be any — 
Thursday — remember, if you don’t promise me that I 
may always go to all the hospitals I want to, all my life.” 

“ Go to as many hospitals as you like, only don’t ask 
me to go with you,” he said with a groan, resigning 
himself. 

“ Oh, with pleasure ; I don’t want you to go. Y ou’re 
very much in the way ; but you may give me lots of 
money always. That would be so nice. How much 
money do you think you’ve got altogether ? I never 
thought to ask you.” 

“ I hope you’ll leave a small percentage to pay the 
household expenses. The rest, of course, belongs to 
the cripples and the small-pox patients.” 

“ Oh, I’ll spare enough for all that. I hope you are 
very rich. I wonder that I didn’t think of it before. 
Do you think you could give me fifty dollars for a feast 
for male ward Ho. 6, on Thursday ?” 

“ A thousand, if you won’t ask to go there for a 
fortnight.” 

“ Oh, well, that’s reasonable. Ho, I won’t ask to go 
for three weeks, if you say so ; at least, not till we come 
back.” 

* * * Macnally had said to me, earnestly, “ Get 
Sophia to consent to see me before we go away. I 
should somehow feel better about it if she would.” 

But it was of no use asking her. On Wednesday 
night, late, I went up to say good-bye to her. I found 
her looking pale and changed. For the past ten days 


418 


A FAIR LAND. 


she had been stiller and quieter than I had ever known 
her. She seemed to have withdrawn from ns, and to 
be holding bitter communion with herself. It fright- 
ened me to see her so. I asked her if, even now, she 
wouldn’t let me stay at home till she was better. 

“ Ko,” she said, and her voice was not feeble. “ I 
am no worse. I don’t need anybody.” 

“ Macnally wants to know if you won’t see him for 
a minute. He desires it very much, before we go 
away.” 

She shook her head. 

“I don’t feel well enough. Tell him — it’s all 
right.” 

That was the nearest that we got to it ; but for her, 
it meant volumes. I was always glad to recollect those 
few words. 

She allowed me to kiss her, and she held my hand 
tight, for a moment. * * * 

On Thursday morning, I went out to church in the 
gray twilight, accompanied by Mary. This last was a 
concession to Macnally’s wretchedness about my going 
out unattended at that early hour. I heard the door of 
the other house shut, just after we got out into the 
street, and I knew that he was following us at a little 
distance. We were to be married after the seven 
o’clock celebration. The sky was growing lighter about 
the east. It was going to be a still and lovely Febru 
ary day. The streets were silent, the houses shut ; a 
few hungry little sparrows fluttered about the pave- 
ment, hunting crumbs ; a dog shivered before a door, 
outside of which he had been shut all night. Poor 
little dog ! It was my wedding-day ; I hoped he would 
get in and find a cheerful welcome waiting for him. It 


A FAm LAND. 


419 


was my wedding-day, and I felt happy, for the faint 
rose tints that I saw creeping up in the eastern sky, 
through the bare branches of the trees. 

I had not seen Macnally since the morning before. 
I had told him I must pack my trunk, and that there 
were many things that I could not do with interrup- 
tion. I knew he would not join me till before the 
altar, but I heard his step half a block behind me. 

* * * Who cannot fancy what that hour was? I 
almost forgot him, as in the hospital. When the few 
people had gone out of church, and only the one or 
two were still upon their knees who were going to stay 
and pray for us, I saw the priest was waiting, and that 
Macnally was standing at the chancel steps. I seemed 
to be coming out of a far land ; the land I came to was 
not fairer than the land I left — “ pure lilies of eternal 
peace whose odors haunt my dreams.” * * * 

When we came out of the church, the air was full 
of simshine and the streets of life. Merry children ran 
past us on their way to school ; window blinds were 
opened and curtains drawn, and flowers looked through 
the glass and drank the sun. One could see the buds 
were reddening on the bare gray trees as the sun shone 
through them ; one felt, in everything, even in the not 
warm air, “ the first blind motions of the Spring, that 
show the year is turned.” 


THE EIiTD. 





APR 14 i9U9 




